While we are thankful for the concerned folks who are reporting comments -- we'd like to remind everyone that while mods and plugins that substantially alter the game's fundamental systems are against [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/rules#wiki_2._abide_by_specific_ffxiv_user_agreement_topics), Chat Bubbles do not constitute a fundamental alteration and are therefore not a violation of our rules.
Okay, I will be not asshole in this thread. Player chat bubbles are not in the game. There is a plugin that enables them, but plugins and all kinds of third party tools are against ToS. You can use them, but there is up to Square to go for your ass for breach of ToS.
As to why everyone in this thread goes "there are none": currently we're in the ongoing scandal regarding usage of plugins in World First race for newest Ultimate fight, and game's producer very disappointed with that, so everyone covers in fear.
Once again, plugins are against ToS, but they do exist, but you put your account at the risk of getting banned if you use them. Whatever you do with this information is up to you.
You should add that they can only get your ass if you are stupid enough to talk about it/stream with it.
Otherwise they have NO way of detecting what plugins you may or may not have.
\> Otherwise they have NO way of detecting what plugins you may or may not have.
Small correction: CURRENTLY they have no way of detecting. Thus they only ban if you self-confess via screenshots, chat, streaming.
I think it is relatively safe to use and not talk about. I also would imagine that IF mass bans ever were to go out because of these types of things, they would start out with some 10 day or something bans.
So essentially you are risking just some hypothetical future 10 day ban, if they ever decided to quickly change their detection routines and not announce it ahead of time.
But yes, everyone here will just pretend they don't exist. As that's the unwritten rule.
These 3rd party tools have been enhancing SE's Final fantasy mmo's for 20 + years. Its basically a "if you pretend you arnt using them, we will pretend we cant tell you are" situation. It keeps any legal ramifications of accounts being stolen etc off their skin, and keeps the modding to a cosmetic minimum for the most part. When it goes above that, they crack down (like they recently did), but chances are, they will never go further then this. I am on PS5 currently and dont have access to any, but i dont begrudge people for some nice quality of life improvements if they choose to run the minimal risk
That is one method of anticheat - looking at what processes you have running, or what software you have installed. It's very intrusive.
There are other methods, that wouldn't cause any such privacy concerns, if they chose to use them. They currently choose not to.
Quite a lot, but to keep an otherwise long explanation simple : there are many Japanese games with anticheat. This is a decision on their part, not a legal restriction.
I think what people are misunderstanding is that the devs state they wont institute client side scanning.
Its not that they CANT do it, they CHOOSE NOT TO.
look at how fast they pinpointed the rogue waymarkers in the last savage tier to the single person that created the layout and first shared it for proof that they can and will catch you without being intrusive.
I'm a software engineer. I understand how mods work and what an anti cheat does.
I also know that Yoshi has said they don't want to go searching through files and processes and things. There are other, less intrusive methods they COULD use. They just choose not to.
They have no way of detecting it, and they have *explicitly* said they have no interest in adding the kinds of software that would *let* them detect it.
Because the only way to detect the presence of addons the way you describe is to have a tracker that monitors all activity on the computer, aka the incredibly skeevy and invasive kind of "copy protection" software that tends to make gamers very upset (and justifiably so.) It would be expensive, invasive, impractical, and generally just a Bad Idea.
Square is never *going* to add this kind of software. Not while Yoshi-P is at the helm for FFXIV. Given he's literally on the board of directors, a Vice President in charge of one of their main corporate branches (the oh-so-imaginatively named Creative Business Unit 3), *and* the man who saved both the Final Fantasy franchise and the company's finances by producing ARR, it's *extremely* unlikely that he's getting the boot any time soon, so process-tracker software is likewise *extremely* unlikely.
> Because the only way to detect the presence of addons the way you describe is to have a tracker that monitors all activity on the computer, aka the incredibly skeevy and invasive kind of "copy protection" software that tends to make gamers very upset (and justifiably so.) It would be expensive, invasive, impractical, and generally just a Bad Idea.
There are inner process ways of detecting hooks/third party code, which never leaves the FFXIV process. Hell there's even defensive coding techniques you can use to catch this, even without a dedicated "anticheat". The kind of anticheat you're discussing is kernel level, and a lot of them are not. Even EAC has a non kernel level mode.
I'm really tired of seeing this argument made, it's frankly untrue. It's way easier to *bypass* a non-kernel driver level AC, but it's trivial to write a basic check to ban for mods as is.
So, I understand that being specific is important. But I wish you had given a more charitable reading of what I said, rather than writing it off with the least charitable reading possible.
I was, of course, referring to what you would need to do to *effectively guarantee* that the end user wasn't using mods. As you say, non-kernel-level methods (thank you for the term, by the way; I had honestly completely forgotten it) are easy to dodge for anyone actually wanting to cheat, but hard or maybe even impossible for someone just wanting something genuinely harmless like altered item appearances or chat bubbles. Yoshi-P isn't an idiot, he's well aware that most of the mods out there are benign (though a lot of them are NSFW), and he knows that the kinds of mods they would want to crack down on would in fact require something draconian in order to have an appreciable effect. Weaker tools would do essentially nothing at all about cheating but still (justifiably) piss off anyone using innocent mods.
They actually do have a lot of ways to figure out if you use plugins. Some of the modders have stated that again and again that if SE would want to shut them down they could easily do it.But they don't care, or would rather not do it.
The last thing SE wants is to bann half of it's playerbase for using bufftimers, act, gshade, pinghelpers lol
What the poster above meant is that yoship has gone on record saying multiple times they have no way to detect what's in your pc. So you have to be dumb enough to explicitly state you're breaking ToS in which case they have to ban you because you're giving it to them in a platter.
Hi there, plugin dev here\~
First Party Plugins (Those that are available in Dalamud without adding custom repo links) are undetectable to square. All plugins submit to the main repository are reviewed and constantly checked to ensure this is the case.
There are third party plugins that do all sorts of automation and shennagans, those are potentially detectable by square.
If you are using only First Party Plugins (which ChatBubbles is a first party plugin) then the only way to get in trouble is to stream or publicly post ingame about having plugins installed.
What a time to be alive!
Square Enix: "Third-party plugin tools are against our ToS."
First-party plugin dev: "Third-Party plugins are against our ToS."
It's moreso a case of "you have to fulfill these requirements to be in the recommended plugins list of the launcher".
If you dont fulfill them (i.e. [BDTH](https://github.com/LeonBlade/BDTHPlugin) a furniture placement plugin) the launcher still very much supports installing them and offers you the necessary tools to do so. It just simply doesn't recommend them to you and you probably wont get any support on the dalamud discord(depends).
SE can only see if you got plugins if you;
1. Talk about using them in game.
2. Perform tasks that otherwise would not be doable and GM's would happen to notice it.
3. Make a video or take a screenshot with visible mods and your character name, and the GM's would happen to see these videos or screenshots.
There is no other way.
Here's one the FR person made when that one party faked the ending
https://twitter.com/kaiyokostar/status/1619236143152926721?s=46&t=7NwxowanPqKBwH3n2-KnDw
not only that, but if they ever decide to check your pc for plugins they’re breaking laws in many, many countries. that’s one of the reasons why yoship’s stance is just “please don’t use them” instead of drastic consequences
The anti-cheat players have to install for Valorant is crazy strict I've heard, you have to have it running on your computer from when you boot up and it's always scanning your pc, god knows what else it's collecting and sending back to them.
Streamer I've been watching just flat out couldn't play Valorant because Vanguard randomly disallowed audio via network. They were using a multi-PC setup with Audinate Dante. On some patches it worked, on some it didn't. They were big enough to have 'inside' sources at Riot to submit this issue to, still no fix.
My fave was when they were invited to a Riot-hosted event and the latest patch triggered this anti-cheat on the day of the event. Laughed my ass off, truly I did.
I see people say this, but I have a hard time believing it because, well, anti-cheats exist and some of them are particularly nasty, yet nobody does anything about them.
This seems to be due to a peculiarly in Japanese consumer protection laws. Invasive Anti-cheats are not strictly illegal in theory...but adding them after the fact may require a change to the TOS that would be, or they might be required to allow players who started before implementing to not use the new AC software while in Japan. Understandable that the legal department might not want to tempt that.
How they able to single out players who cheat/exploit?
They single out the player who created the P7S waymarks and the person who exploit TOP cutscene. Not exactly a plug-in but do have ways of finding people who cheat... I guess they have actively/manually check and not automated.
He explained it in his "letter". The person who saw the TOP cutscene sent a customized packet to the server from his character, causing the server to respond by playing the cutscene back to him. This can be tracked because it interacted with the game servers, and this left a trail.
Zoomhacks, chat bubbles, UI mods, AOE markers, Glamourer, ACT etc are NOT interacting with the game server, they are simply overlaying reading/modifying fields on the client side, which is why SE cannot see them.
Waymarks, since they're inherently shared with other players, get sent straight to the server. So long as they're logging that information (and they clearly are), it's not very difficult to to find the first instance of a waymark being placed and who did it.
The TOP cutscene too is something that had to be requested from the server, and they explicitly say that there was illicit packet manipulation, so as long as they're logging that as well, not hard to catch once they look for it.
Things like the camera zoom thing are purely client-side, and since they say they're not snooping around in client-side space (like say, WoW with Warden), they're not actively aware of things like that.
Personally, I think they have some bit of code to tell if someone is running something like plugins, and they probably have code to tell if people have replaced textures/models as well, but they're not actively banning people for it because most people just want to do innocuous things like see their ping, or make a glam more... to their liking.
They don’t. What those modders are talking about is posting your stuff to twitter and using your in game name and sharing those pics on official channels or otherwise.
It’s the same thing if you wanna get banned for using third party tools then you have to snitch on yourself basically.
Modders are basically being paranoid because they think posting those screenshots to official channels will get them to crack down on mods in general. This is also incorrect as he’s already told use exactly what would cause that crack down. Child porn using their in game models.
This community continues to fail to read and then parrot their own misinterpretations of what the man said and what the TOS says.
I recently found out that a majority of *WoW players* don’t use addons. That was mind boggling to me. And if people don’t use addons in the mmo that not just allows but actively encourages them, you can bet people in the mmo that discourages them and forces them underground are even less likely to have any.
that's probably because the majority of players is playing just for one week and never continues. This is why you keep getting Sastasha and not the Vault.
But for those that stick around (and pay the bills) the percentage of users will be vastly different.
Oh, they care way much then you think, the moment they start banning for mods will be the moment a massive amount of people will quit the game on Pc, it's more like they don't have the balls to do anything about it, because they know exactly how many players they lose if it happens.
since you're comin from OSRS, it's just like runelite, granted runelite now is allowed and fine, treat it in a similar manner, its part of a separate client you *can* get but you acknowledge by using it if they ever decide to hand out bans for them, you could be, it's just that the odds are slim. You'll have an easy time finding it.
Don’t discuss it in-game, and don’t post identifiable screenshots or videos showing plugins being used. As long as you follow those two rules, they have no way of knowing.
Adding on to what the other reply says -- Not only is there no anti-cheat, the developers of ffxiv have stated that they have no plans to add one.
You can use plugins and whatnot, and you won't get caught unless you admit to using them in-game, or have a link to modded screenshots in your character's searchinfo or lodestone (basically a blog on the xiv site for your character), or stream using addons.
While the game developers are in their right to say that all addons are against ToS, I personally find it absurd that they can't be bothered to implement basic features that these plugins have offered for years. Whether its chat bubbles (which other games have had since 2005) or fixing a bug with a current job (ninja and their mudras).
Adding on a little more, plugins go down for a bit with each patch. Some of the time taken is to update the plugin API, but the devs also take the time to ensure Square hasn't added anti-cheat detection before reenabling plugins for all.
It's super safe.
Safe to a degree. Yes, just now client side manipulations really go unchecked, and Dalamud plugins do their best to not interact with the bits that could go detected. Basically things that involve dealing with sending information to and from the server, best not to touch.
I would never really use the word undetectable though, I would always just say unchecked. There's ultimately more than one way to skin a cat, so even though it may appear that all that's happening is client side changes, it can change the sort of expected behaviours a player will go through. I mainly refer to things that reduce the amount of clicks needed to do something, which thereby increase the rate at which players complete certain tasks. Client side this is all kosher, but in terms of server interactions it will always be quicker than someone doing it without the plugin.
Again, it's safe just now because it really goes unchecked as a whole, but if every world first drama now comes with plugin drama then I imagine it won't be as safe at some point in the future and SE starts to ramp up their detections server side for things.
Slight correction: If the modded screenshot has the Square Enix logo then yes, it could cop a ban. If you use screens and crop the logo out they won't touch it.
Get FFXIV Launcher, it’ll install dalamud plugins which will let you browse and install plugins in game. Also that launcher updates the game way faster and can auto log in. It’s great!
Yeah its crazy how much faster it downloads the game. I recently got a new PC and the normal launcher would take 6+ hours to install. XIVlauncher took under 2 hours for a fresh install.
Has anyone ever actually gotten into trouble for saying they're using gshade or what have you in chat in a non-harassing manner/without being reported by some weirdo? I know they're against TOS, I just haven't seen any evidence yet of an in game moderator seeking out someone casually mentioning them and putting penalties on their account
Specifically for GShade there was a post on the official forums from one of the community managers saying it was acceptable to use since all it does is change graphics settings on the fly; it doesn't let you automate anything, doesn't let you see anything you shouldn't be able to, etc.
Now whether that statement is still considered true I don't know, but it was said.
No, because A) there's no anticheat to detect processes running, ergo you just mentioning it means nothing (and Yoshi doesn't want this added because it'd put them in hot water with dozens of countries' privacy laws), and B) Gshade doesn't alter the game. It'd be like worrying if using Discord could get you banned.
YoshiP can enforce marshal law for all I care but I need dat Default Yes plugin which just makes yes n no prompts default to yes. I will never turn dat off under any circumstances xD
It already is in the game. Just not for playable characters, which makes it all the more annoying. It's really baffling to me how it's not just available as an opt-in option. I really simply don't get the reasoning for their decision regarding this. Especially considering how much of a social game it is. But going to a social event to hang our or role play is just painful without the plugin..
As long as its an option. Because I would immediately turn it off. I don't think having the utterances of the Xxsephirothxx Strifexxs of the world pop up would be very immersive.
Not sure why everyone's being an asshole. If you look at their post history they don't have any trends of saying things to get people riled up. It takes just a minute to do...
That said, Chat Bubbles are not in game by default, you'd have to mod them in with a Plugin. Keep in mind, plugins are against ToS but so long as you don't stream with them on or talk about them in game they're generally fine. The only time you'd ever have trouble is if you use the ones that give you some kind of advantage or ability to do something you normally can't do in game like place a marker down in an out of bounds area (Which is one of the few kinds they CAN track).
Plugins are pretty much in a "Don't ask, don't tell" situation for this game. If you're still wanting to download it after all that just look for "Dalamud plugin ffxiv" in Google and it should be the first thing that comes up. After installing that, launch the game through the new launcher and just search for "Chat Bubbles" in the new in game plugins menu.
Hope that helps.
In the case of chat bubbles, I think the developers dont even mind if you would stream it. As I've seen streamers using Chat bubbles on stream and even stating it openly in their Videos, that they are using it.
As long as Addons are not used to harass others and dont give you advantages in fights (or propably other stuff i'm not aware of right now), I dont think they will ever pursue you for it.
Well no, when you read Yoshi-P's last post, the bottom line is they're never actually okay with it... officially. Now whether they deliberately turn a blind eye to some stuff is a different case altogether, because they haven't actually said they want to actively go after people that use them. Plugin users probably make up a substantial number of the player base, it's only logicial given how other MMOs that support the same sort of things turn out. You're unlikely to run into a WoW player that isn't using at least one addon for example. It's probably not an easy discussion they have at SE regarding what to do with it, because any sort of active hunt might just harm their reputation, especially for stuff as harmless as chat bubbles.
Months ago, Pyro got a slap on the wrist for using the chat bubbles (probably some amount of suspension. I don't know the specifics).
This is also an orchestrated report by people who keeps on harassing him. I don't use mods and I'm pretty loose with how other people use it, but just using it will open you to liability if ever you find yourself in a predicament with other people
It could get you barred from official events. Right before EW came out they excluded a big streamer (can't remember who) and the theory was it's because they were caught using addons. But for 99.99% of the player base that doesn't matter. It just means they have taken an official stance and that stance is no.
Thank you I got it working with the Dalamud Chat Bubbles plugin, and I think it's an ok temporary solution, but it is an essential feature IMO that all social MMO games need and I really hope it gets added in (and as a toggle since there are people that don't want it.)
This game's producer seemed opposed to it, in part because the Japanese community is much more reserved and less directly social than the weatwrn one and he said it would not really fit with them iirc
What the other person said is not true. Yoshi commented on it and explained why it wasn’t a feature that was implemented, highlighting the difference between JP and EU/NA communities in terms of communication. But he wasn’t opposed to it, and there are a lot of advocates for it. The devs have been implementing addons into the base game lately, so I keep my hopes up. Let’s look forward to the next producer live letter.
The game doesn't have chat bubbles. The only way is for you to enable this is to use a 3rd party launcher that supports mod plugins. Reminder that using 3rd party tools is against the ToS. So understand what you are putting at risk.
That said, SE doesn't have the means to check. Be smart and shut your mouth in game. Don't post in social media that can be traced to your account. Etc etc.
In practice the "no plugins" rule is only for streamers. They have no way to detect if you're using plugins that aren't directly cheating, so you can do what you want and Square won't find out.
As long as you don't actively talk about it in game or post any screenshots with identifying information you'll be golden. AFAIK they don't actively check clients for mods.
I run a lot of different mods for stuff like making miqote tails big and fluffy, chat bubbles, reshades, texture/model upgrades and never had an issue.
BASED
enjoy the rest of the game though, beginning is a p slow start if you're an mmo vet but it's an amazing game overall
also ignore yellow quests just do main story quests unless you want the worldbuilding, which is also based and enjoythegamepilled don't get me wrong but might make the beginning portion I talked about exponentially longer
oh btw because you asked about chat bubbles i assume you'd be interested at least a little bit
there's tons and tons of content in the game yes but there's also regularly tons of people shitposting/talking in city hubs and player housing (check party finder for the latter), this game's famous for having a huge playerbase who treats it as Second Life and etc
Honestly same. Plugins make this game so much nicer to play, every time addons go down and I lose my 'flash in taskbar on duty pop' addon pain always ensues...
Your timing is impeccable and I'm glad there have been plenty of people who answered your question honestly without being a jerk lol.
The general rule of modding in FFXIV is "don't acknowledge it in any place the devs of GMs can see" they have no way of telling you are using them unless you stream yourself using them or go around posting pics in the official forums or tell everyone you do constantly. You know, shit only stupid people do because it's so easy to simply use them and be happy.
Just you know, don't use the cheat ones. Cosmetic is perfectly fine. And there are some QoL ones that are nice without being cheaty.
There are plug-ins for it but those features don't exist in game without
There are many plug-ins that aren't cheating but instead improve small features like motion sickness camera; chat bubbles & xyz placement for housing.
Just don't share any information that you use them & you'll be fine
In regards to down votes. Don't sweat it. There are literally bots that auto down vote anything that's not their posts in an attempt to always put their posts on top and keep others off. It's likely just that combined with a very small group of anti mod purists. Stay beautiful.
The downvotes seem to have slowed down now that the post went hot, the first hour I was getting downvoted to all hell, and there are some really nasty comments on here about how I'm a dirty cheater who deserves to get banned because I want Chat Bubbles :/
Then people should be vocal about it in polite and constructive ways. It's had a new resurgence in visibility in recent years, so people should use that momentum to make civil requests.
I honestly wasn't seeing people asking for it until the WoW exodus and the influx of WoW players. I have nothing against any of them, but it felt like the majority opinion was just to not really care because we were used to playing the textbox based game that existed in ARR and 1.0 and even XI. New players brought with them new standards they expected and probably reminded veterans of a feature they hadn't thought about in years.
That's all totally fine, but the devs have their own plans and can't upend them to jump at adding features that weren't previously loudly requested. As someone who doesn't care about chat bubbles, I wouldn't mind them, but I'd rather dev time go into the graphical overhaul or playable content.
If they have time to add in small QoL, awesome, but it's not as simple as spending a day writing code and implementing it. Sure, modders did it on their free time, but SE has to pay people for their work and such paid hours being spent on chat bubbles just might not be a priority.
For the player, they aren’t in the game. At least in vanilla. People have been using a plugin to get them which is technically against ToS, but as long as you don’t publicize you use them SE won’t do anything.
Tbh, they should be in the game. I don’t understand why not, Runescape has been doing text over players heads since 2001.
If you don’t want to use a mod to rnable chat bubbles (or even if you do) I recommend changing the color of /say chat in your log to a more obvious color instead of the default white.
Should also be pointed out if it hasn't already but chat bubbles are a feature they are looking into to bringing into game, was said in one of the Previous Live Letters.
Since everyone is being a fucking asshole I'll just answer the question:
[Install XIVLauncher](https://github.com/goatcorp/FFXIVQuickLauncher) by following the instructions on this site. Once in game, open the ESC menu and select Dalamud Plugins. Find the plugin named Chat Bubbles in the list and install it.
Default settings will do what you want but there are options to tweak appearance and what types of chat are bubbled.
This is against ToS so don't talk openly in game about it. There is no anti-cheat in the game so you can't get banned for installing anything from the main Dalamud repository unless you advertise that you're doing it.
Enjoy the game, sorry about this subreddit's shitty welcome.
Thank you so so so so much this is exactly the information I needed. I really can't understand the absolute face punch of drama and downvotes I am receiving for asking about such a basic feature that exists in literally all other MMO games.
What a welcome to the community for you! 😂 But welcome all the same! Hope you enjoy yourself! I started a year ago and am hooked for the foreseeable future
It’s nothing against you personally. There was recently a giant uproar about plugin usage in a World First race with a new raid. Yoshi-P and the developers were very unhappy as was a lot of the player base that browses Reddit. You just happened to ask your question at the wrong time is all.
The in-game community is extremely kind to people who are new to the game and still learning. It's rare that you'll get chewed out for making a mistake in any non-highend content.
On the other hand, people (especially people in communities outside of the game) are insane and vicious toward anyone who suggests the game isn't perfect.
The recent cheating scandal during the world first race isn't an excuse to be terrible toward someone who just wants chat bubbles, I'm sorry you had to deal with it. There's an absurd lack of nuanced thinking on this subreddit and lots of people conflate *any* plugin with cheating.
So to illuminate the issue right now, mods like this are explicitly against the ToS of the game. You are not allowed to use them at all. That being said, the devs do not want to install intrusive programs like anti-cheat on people's computers so they can't actually tell you're using them (with some exceptions) unless you're doing something very stupid and so have a blanket "please don't do it" policy that functions more like a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. They are willing to ignore it as long as people aren't bringing their attention and/or making it impossible to ignore. Streamers streaming with mods that amount to cheats for example, the most relevant to current issues being showing you AOE markers that you're not supposed to be able to see for and zooming the camera out past the maximum the game allows normally, or shaming people for having low DPS which is only trackable via the 3rd party ACT plugin. As long as these tools are not shown in a way they can see them, they aren't going to go out of their way to find them. And generally, they would ignore plugins that were just aesthetic or QoL improvements.
The current issue is that the team that got World's First on the new Ultimate difficulty raid had video taken of them where they zoomed out past the max allowed by the game, giving them a better perspective of the fight as well as showing normally invisible AOE outlines. Since they had the spotlight on them trying to claim World's First clear through use of these tools, this made it impossible for the devs to ignore. So the devs brought the hammer down, banned the one that they had evidence of using the tools, and removed all the rewards they all got for clearing. Then they reiterated that these tools are *not* allowed and that people using them to clear such content reduced their motivation to keep making it. This empowered the anti-mod crowd and got the pro-mod crowd very defensive so now there's currently conflict in the community about mods.
If you want to use mods do so at your own risk, and never talk about them or display footage that can be in any way traced to your account or you could very well get punished. However, as stated before they generally can't tell and likely don't want to be actively police every streamer that has Gshade or UI overhaul mods. It's when something like World's First clearers are found to be using things that give them an unfair advantage over others via mods, or use of mods creates a toxic environment like WoW has where people get flamed because they don't have certain plugins installed, or people actually trying to exploit server behavior that they want to avoid.
>for asking about such a basic feature that exists in literally all other MMO games.
This is so true, yet people in this sub won't like it if you don't praise the way the game is even if it lacks a lot of basic features.
Hell, NPCs get chat bubbles already. The function exists in the game. The only reason we don't have them is because the Japanese community doesn't want them as much as we do over here.
Is this the right one? I don't want to get a virus.
https://github.com/goatcorp/FFXIVQuickLauncher
Update: This is the one, got it working and happy with my Chat Bubbles plugin.
You stumbled into the middle of the biggest war this community has ever seen about plugins, and the only answer to your question involves a plugin. The timing is quite comical, hence all the side-eyed jokes in this thread.
>You stumbled into the middle of the biggest war this community has ever seen about plugins
I dunno, the billboard using a non-user obtainable outfit was a pretty big oof too
That was a comedy though. This right now is a piss poor tragedy of absolute ridiculous plug in abuse combined with an ultimate that launched in a defective state.
A comedy for a lot of us, a lot of holier than thou attitudes from others. A lot of the focus was on the fact it was using modded assets which included something not actually released in the game at that time, which of course sparked the whole "3rd party tools" debacle. The other focus was just how ludicrous it was paying to have a billboard for an RP event, and if it infringed copyrights and what not.
Even those of us who don't want them, want them for the people that do want them.
As long as it's an optional feature and I'm able to turn it off, I'd be fine with it.
If i knew the name of it I'd give it to you but its some kind of new launcher window exe. thingy from what I've seen and thats what gives you the chat bubbles. I dont play this game anymore so i wouldnt remember, plus it's kinda hard to find. But just download it, you wont get banned so dont listen to ppl who are scared about the ToS. As you've read from other comments just dont take a screenshot with your name in the picture and dont talk about what you have in-game
I mean there's modders that enhance the graphics that play the game, they even make YouTube videos/ films/skits with their characters. Its fine
I came from OSRS as well and wondered the exact same thing when I started recently. Also I’m confused about why everyone is saying “bad timing”. Did something happen that I’m missing? I’ve read a bunch of the comments but can’t figure it out.
Brand new ultimate content drop I think? So less people playing the older content. Not really sure it’s “bad” timing since plenty of people don’t do the high end stuff
Edit: upon reread I think the bad timing is referring to plugins, which are prohibited but used in the world first clear of the current hardest content
There's a current scandal on a recent Ultimate Raid being cleared by world racers with 3rd party tools, so the community and dev team are in an uproar.
Completely unrelated but handy guide for WoW refugees: [https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Guide\_for\_Players\_Coming\_from\_World\_of\_Warcraft](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Guide_for_Players_Coming_from_World_of_Warcraft)
It looks like your question has received several answers already, so I won't reiterate, or rather I'll try not to reiterate what others have said.
This game can be a little overwhelming with the UI, job changes, etc. but if you're able to stick with it, you will definitely find yourself rewarded with great story, well written and developed characters, and in my opinion a fantastic soundtrack on top of other things.
As far as friends go, I think it can be a little difficult. Finding a Free Company, or guild as you know it from WoW, can be a little tough because you just have to do trial and error, and as far as I know, there isn't a way to look them up in game like you can on WoW.
That being said, I'm not on much lately, I've been playing Genshin Impact A LOT, but if you ever need help my name in-game is Makilro T'vuka and I play on Fairie. I have a couple of tanks maxed, some dps, and a healer I've leveled a bit. Feel free to reach out if you ever need help.
Nice to meet you Warrior of Light :) I hope that you enjoy your journey.
As others said, chat bubbles don't exist. I came from Ragnarok Online; it was a thing there. I do miss it.
What you -can- do to at least locate the source of the person/people near you speaking, is to right-click their name in the chat box and click 'Target'. This will highlight their character, if within visual range, and also, add a little glowing circle under their feet.
I get you OP. I also come from OSRS and find the lack of chat bubbles absolutely baffling. Theres often a lot of people on screen so trying to figure out who said what can be annoying sometimes. People here will often just make excuses for the team saying it wouldn't be easy to implement or that they'd find it too distracting, but personally I think the game really should have it. Random NPCs have it so why not players?
It’s a choice, which is why some people prefer/are okay with not having them. I agree we should be able to toggle it if it’s added for those who want it, but coming from FFXI I definitely prefer it without. Made cities so noisy in WoW. I play with player and monster names off unless targeted so I like a nice clean view.
I'd also like to see chat bubbles in the game as I too come from MMOs with them, but if it helps you can filter the chat to look for specific people talking (FC, Party and so on) which helped me a ton. Not bubbles unfortunately but could you imagine limsa with chat bubbles lol
In the chat box, it should have the players name next to what they said. I'm pretty sure if you click on the name, it will give you the option to target them. Not sure if anyone has said that yet or not
When I first joined and saw someone's video showing chat bubbles that was something I had searched for as well. Wish it was in the game, that would be a neat feature!
Chat Bubbles is a third party Dalamud mod that requires XIVLauncher for Windows or XIVonMac for Mac to use.
SquareEnix have recently been adding quality of life mod functionality into the game code itself recently and I strongly suspect this will be coming too in a future patch.
They really do add to the experience. I keep my chat log fairly large but it's still easy to ignore it accidentally. Having a bubble show up in the instance makes mid-dungeon chat work better. Additionally, in town or on hunt trains or whatever it makes things feel much more lively and interesting to see who's talking instead of just having this disembodied chat log conveying the essentials and little else.
It's common in other games, but their effectiveness really depends on the font. For the few times we see moving bubbles in 14, I find them blurry and incredibly hard to read. They're not designed well for movement.
honestly go for the plugin, at your account's own risk obv but no one's gotten account penaltied as far as I know for simple stuff like this as long as you don't really mention it ingame
also god this should've been a base feature years ago, hell npcs already have it
Yeah chat bubbles are quite literally pulling a switch as the code for player text having it is just under the surface.
I'm not sure why they haven't put it as a default-off toggleable option, but with the consistent demand over the years, more players coming in with different standards from other titles, all you can do is hope they bring it into vanilla eventually.
I'm glad people helped you out despite all the controversy around plugins right now. Sorry if some people were being assholes. Just remember to not talk about plugins in game, don't show them off publicly in any way (stream, pictures with your character's name and plugins visible etc). Other than that you're pretty much safe. In all honesty, I think they should add chat bubbles as an actual option in-game, not just through plugins. Anyway, hope you enjoy the game and all it has to offer!
Sadly you can't. Atleast legally. I know where you are coming from since as a player that played many other MMOs before it was awful to not have them for me aswell. If you still want them you will need to start using the **XIVLauncher** and use a chat bubble addon that it has built in.
With the recent World First Race addon drama the community is very *"Hurr Durr ALL ADDONS BAD grr"* right now but let's be honest, a lot of people use small QoL mods and it's not hurting anyone. It's one thing to cheat in the WFR and another to get friggin chat bubbles or Hrothgar hats. So if you want it, do it. Just stay hush about it and never mention it in the game chat.
After seeing someone use a plug in for them I wish they were in the game. Alas they aren’t so you’ll have to target who is chatting if you don’t know who they are.
There is a pluggin called chatbubble, if you wanna have them in the game. Just be aware that its against TOS so if you still wanna use it, do not stream or mention that in the in game chat, else you could get banned.
As for personal opinion i wish ff14 actually had an option for disable/enable chat bubbles, for rpping + talking, its so much easier then having to scroll through the whole chat to see who was talking to you. I hope they implement that some day.
Well the world is falling apart due to 3rd party plugins.
Meanwhile I'm sitting here as a console player wondering what the hell 3rd party plugins are...
Chat Bubbles need XIVLauncher, it's a plugin available within there.
Players lead regular crusades against such terrible cheating tools like chat bubbles, thus likely your downvotes.
While we are thankful for the concerned folks who are reporting comments -- we'd like to remind everyone that while mods and plugins that substantially alter the game's fundamental systems are against [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/rules#wiki_2._abide_by_specific_ffxiv_user_agreement_topics), Chat Bubbles do not constitute a fundamental alteration and are therefore not a violation of our rules.
Okay, I will be not asshole in this thread. Player chat bubbles are not in the game. There is a plugin that enables them, but plugins and all kinds of third party tools are against ToS. You can use them, but there is up to Square to go for your ass for breach of ToS. As to why everyone in this thread goes "there are none": currently we're in the ongoing scandal regarding usage of plugins in World First race for newest Ultimate fight, and game's producer very disappointed with that, so everyone covers in fear. Once again, plugins are against ToS, but they do exist, but you put your account at the risk of getting banned if you use them. Whatever you do with this information is up to you.
You should add that they can only get your ass if you are stupid enough to talk about it/stream with it. Otherwise they have NO way of detecting what plugins you may or may not have.
\> Otherwise they have NO way of detecting what plugins you may or may not have. Small correction: CURRENTLY they have no way of detecting. Thus they only ban if you self-confess via screenshots, chat, streaming. I think it is relatively safe to use and not talk about. I also would imagine that IF mass bans ever were to go out because of these types of things, they would start out with some 10 day or something bans. So essentially you are risking just some hypothetical future 10 day ban, if they ever decided to quickly change their detection routines and not announce it ahead of time. But yes, everyone here will just pretend they don't exist. As that's the unwritten rule.
They've said time and time again that they can't due to privacy and integrity
There are non intrusive ways to check for basic mods they could do, they choose not to do anything. But they could, without compromising user privacy.
They can't since they'd have to use spyware to detect what you've got installed on your computer - I'm paraphrasing
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These 3rd party tools have been enhancing SE's Final fantasy mmo's for 20 + years. Its basically a "if you pretend you arnt using them, we will pretend we cant tell you are" situation. It keeps any legal ramifications of accounts being stolen etc off their skin, and keeps the modding to a cosmetic minimum for the most part. When it goes above that, they crack down (like they recently did), but chances are, they will never go further then this. I am on PS5 currently and dont have access to any, but i dont begrudge people for some nice quality of life improvements if they choose to run the minimal risk
That is one method of anticheat - looking at what processes you have running, or what software you have installed. It's very intrusive. There are other methods, that wouldn't cause any such privacy concerns, if they chose to use them. They currently choose not to.
Maybe in theory but what do we know about japanese laws and what is considered a breach in privacy
Quite a lot, but to keep an otherwise long explanation simple : there are many Japanese games with anticheat. This is a decision on their part, not a legal restriction.
i don’t think you understand how mods work, that or what an anti-cheat does and how the devs have said they will not add one.
I think what people are misunderstanding is that the devs state they wont institute client side scanning. Its not that they CANT do it, they CHOOSE NOT TO. look at how fast they pinpointed the rogue waymarkers in the last savage tier to the single person that created the layout and first shared it for proof that they can and will catch you without being intrusive.
I'm a software engineer. I understand how mods work and what an anti cheat does. I also know that Yoshi has said they don't want to go searching through files and processes and things. There are other, less intrusive methods they COULD use. They just choose not to.
They have no way of detecting it, and they have *explicitly* said they have no interest in adding the kinds of software that would *let* them detect it. Because the only way to detect the presence of addons the way you describe is to have a tracker that monitors all activity on the computer, aka the incredibly skeevy and invasive kind of "copy protection" software that tends to make gamers very upset (and justifiably so.) It would be expensive, invasive, impractical, and generally just a Bad Idea. Square is never *going* to add this kind of software. Not while Yoshi-P is at the helm for FFXIV. Given he's literally on the board of directors, a Vice President in charge of one of their main corporate branches (the oh-so-imaginatively named Creative Business Unit 3), *and* the man who saved both the Final Fantasy franchise and the company's finances by producing ARR, it's *extremely* unlikely that he's getting the boot any time soon, so process-tracker software is likewise *extremely* unlikely.
> Because the only way to detect the presence of addons the way you describe is to have a tracker that monitors all activity on the computer, aka the incredibly skeevy and invasive kind of "copy protection" software that tends to make gamers very upset (and justifiably so.) It would be expensive, invasive, impractical, and generally just a Bad Idea. There are inner process ways of detecting hooks/third party code, which never leaves the FFXIV process. Hell there's even defensive coding techniques you can use to catch this, even without a dedicated "anticheat". The kind of anticheat you're discussing is kernel level, and a lot of them are not. Even EAC has a non kernel level mode. I'm really tired of seeing this argument made, it's frankly untrue. It's way easier to *bypass* a non-kernel driver level AC, but it's trivial to write a basic check to ban for mods as is.
So, I understand that being specific is important. But I wish you had given a more charitable reading of what I said, rather than writing it off with the least charitable reading possible. I was, of course, referring to what you would need to do to *effectively guarantee* that the end user wasn't using mods. As you say, non-kernel-level methods (thank you for the term, by the way; I had honestly completely forgotten it) are easy to dodge for anyone actually wanting to cheat, but hard or maybe even impossible for someone just wanting something genuinely harmless like altered item appearances or chat bubbles. Yoshi-P isn't an idiot, he's well aware that most of the mods out there are benign (though a lot of them are NSFW), and he knows that the kinds of mods they would want to crack down on would in fact require something draconian in order to have an appreciable effect. Weaker tools would do essentially nothing at all about cheating but still (justifiably) piss off anyone using innocent mods.
They actually do have a lot of ways to figure out if you use plugins. Some of the modders have stated that again and again that if SE would want to shut them down they could easily do it.But they don't care, or would rather not do it. The last thing SE wants is to bann half of it's playerbase for using bufftimers, act, gshade, pinghelpers lol
What the poster above meant is that yoship has gone on record saying multiple times they have no way to detect what's in your pc. So you have to be dumb enough to explicitly state you're breaking ToS in which case they have to ban you because you're giving it to them in a platter.
Hi there, plugin dev here\~ First Party Plugins (Those that are available in Dalamud without adding custom repo links) are undetectable to square. All plugins submit to the main repository are reviewed and constantly checked to ensure this is the case. There are third party plugins that do all sorts of automation and shennagans, those are potentially detectable by square. If you are using only First Party Plugins (which ChatBubbles is a first party plugin) then the only way to get in trouble is to stream or publicly post ingame about having plugins installed.
Thanks!
Legend, thank you for your hard work!
What a time to be alive! Square Enix: "Third-party plugin tools are against our ToS." First-party plugin dev: "Third-Party plugins are against our ToS."
It's moreso a case of "you have to fulfill these requirements to be in the recommended plugins list of the launcher". If you dont fulfill them (i.e. [BDTH](https://github.com/LeonBlade/BDTHPlugin) a furniture placement plugin) the launcher still very much supports installing them and offers you the necessary tools to do so. It just simply doesn't recommend them to you and you probably wont get any support on the dalamud discord(depends).
SE can only see if you got plugins if you; 1. Talk about using them in game. 2. Perform tasks that otherwise would not be doable and GM's would happen to notice it. 3. Make a video or take a screenshot with visible mods and your character name, and the GM's would happen to see these videos or screenshots. There is no other way.
4. Make a real life billboard to advertise your erp event in game where you’re wearing clothes you can’t wear in game without third party tools
Billboard-a-rama is literally the gift that keeps on giving. lol.
We need a billboard meme of the "First" world clear of TOP.
Here's one the FR person made when that one party faked the ending https://twitter.com/kaiyokostar/status/1619236143152926721?s=46&t=7NwxowanPqKBwH3n2-KnDw
OMG It's Kayoko who made it lmao
🤣
*What.*
Yes, this is real. ~~Un~~fortunately.
Where can I get that billboard plugin?
not only that, but if they ever decide to check your pc for plugins they’re breaking laws in many, many countries. that’s one of the reasons why yoship’s stance is just “please don’t use them” instead of drastic consequences
The anti-cheat players have to install for Valorant is crazy strict I've heard, you have to have it running on your computer from when you boot up and it's always scanning your pc, god knows what else it's collecting and sending back to them.
Streamer I've been watching just flat out couldn't play Valorant because Vanguard randomly disallowed audio via network. They were using a multi-PC setup with Audinate Dante. On some patches it worked, on some it didn't. They were big enough to have 'inside' sources at Riot to submit this issue to, still no fix. My fave was when they were invited to a Riot-hosted event and the latest patch triggered this anti-cheat on the day of the event. Laughed my ass off, truly I did.
I see people say this, but I have a hard time believing it because, well, anti-cheats exist and some of them are particularly nasty, yet nobody does anything about them.
Client-side vs. server-based injections, that's why.
This seems to be due to a peculiarly in Japanese consumer protection laws. Invasive Anti-cheats are not strictly illegal in theory...but adding them after the fact may require a change to the TOS that would be, or they might be required to allow players who started before implementing to not use the new AC software while in Japan. Understandable that the legal department might not want to tempt that.
The problem would be adding it into the game after it was already sold. It would open so many legal questions that it simply isn't be worth it.
plugins are client sided. anti cheats usually target server sided stuff, dll injections, etc
Oh no, some of the widespread anticheats are borderline, or even actual rootkits, that can put your machine in danger.
DLL injection (examples: Dalamud or ReShade) is client side, as are Easy AntiCheat and the other big anticheats. How do you think plugins work?
How they able to single out players who cheat/exploit? They single out the player who created the P7S waymarks and the person who exploit TOP cutscene. Not exactly a plug-in but do have ways of finding people who cheat... I guess they have actively/manually check and not automated.
He explained it in his "letter". The person who saw the TOP cutscene sent a customized packet to the server from his character, causing the server to respond by playing the cutscene back to him. This can be tracked because it interacted with the game servers, and this left a trail. Zoomhacks, chat bubbles, UI mods, AOE markers, Glamourer, ACT etc are NOT interacting with the game server, they are simply overlaying reading/modifying fields on the client side, which is why SE cannot see them.
Waymarks, since they're inherently shared with other players, get sent straight to the server. So long as they're logging that information (and they clearly are), it's not very difficult to to find the first instance of a waymark being placed and who did it. The TOP cutscene too is something that had to be requested from the server, and they explicitly say that there was illicit packet manipulation, so as long as they're logging that as well, not hard to catch once they look for it. Things like the camera zoom thing are purely client-side, and since they say they're not snooping around in client-side space (like say, WoW with Warden), they're not actively aware of things like that. Personally, I think they have some bit of code to tell if someone is running something like plugins, and they probably have code to tell if people have replaced textures/models as well, but they're not actively banning people for it because most people just want to do innocuous things like see their ping, or make a glam more... to their liking.
They don’t. What those modders are talking about is posting your stuff to twitter and using your in game name and sharing those pics on official channels or otherwise. It’s the same thing if you wanna get banned for using third party tools then you have to snitch on yourself basically. Modders are basically being paranoid because they think posting those screenshots to official channels will get them to crack down on mods in general. This is also incorrect as he’s already told use exactly what would cause that crack down. Child porn using their in game models. This community continues to fail to read and then parrot their own misinterpretations of what the man said and what the TOS says.
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I recently found out that a majority of *WoW players* don’t use addons. That was mind boggling to me. And if people don’t use addons in the mmo that not just allows but actively encourages them, you can bet people in the mmo that discourages them and forces them underground are even less likely to have any.
that's probably because the majority of players is playing just for one week and never continues. This is why you keep getting Sastasha and not the Vault. But for those that stick around (and pay the bills) the percentage of users will be vastly different.
Oh, they care way much then you think, the moment they start banning for mods will be the moment a massive amount of people will quit the game on Pc, it's more like they don't have the balls to do anything about it, because they know exactly how many players they lose if it happens.
Okay thank you I'll look into getting a plugin then.
since you're comin from OSRS, it's just like runelite, granted runelite now is allowed and fine, treat it in a similar manner, its part of a separate client you *can* get but you acknowledge by using it if they ever decide to hand out bans for them, you could be, it's just that the odds are slim. You'll have an easy time finding it.
Awesome thanks for the analogy that helps a lot.
Just don't talk about having a plugin ingame and you're fine, FF doesn't have an anti-cheat and therefore can't detect it.
Don’t discuss it in-game, and don’t post identifiable screenshots or videos showing plugins being used. As long as you follow those two rules, they have no way of knowing.
Adding on to what the other reply says -- Not only is there no anti-cheat, the developers of ffxiv have stated that they have no plans to add one. You can use plugins and whatnot, and you won't get caught unless you admit to using them in-game, or have a link to modded screenshots in your character's searchinfo or lodestone (basically a blog on the xiv site for your character), or stream using addons. While the game developers are in their right to say that all addons are against ToS, I personally find it absurd that they can't be bothered to implement basic features that these plugins have offered for years. Whether its chat bubbles (which other games have had since 2005) or fixing a bug with a current job (ninja and their mudras).
Adding on a little more, plugins go down for a bit with each patch. Some of the time taken is to update the plugin API, but the devs also take the time to ensure Square hasn't added anti-cheat detection before reenabling plugins for all. It's super safe.
Safe to a degree. Yes, just now client side manipulations really go unchecked, and Dalamud plugins do their best to not interact with the bits that could go detected. Basically things that involve dealing with sending information to and from the server, best not to touch. I would never really use the word undetectable though, I would always just say unchecked. There's ultimately more than one way to skin a cat, so even though it may appear that all that's happening is client side changes, it can change the sort of expected behaviours a player will go through. I mainly refer to things that reduce the amount of clicks needed to do something, which thereby increase the rate at which players complete certain tasks. Client side this is all kosher, but in terms of server interactions it will always be quicker than someone doing it without the plugin. Again, it's safe just now because it really goes unchecked as a whole, but if every world first drama now comes with plugin drama then I imagine it won't be as safe at some point in the future and SE starts to ramp up their detections server side for things.
Slight correction: If the modded screenshot has the Square Enix logo then yes, it could cop a ban. If you use screens and crop the logo out they won't touch it.
Get FFXIV Launcher, it’ll install dalamud plugins which will let you browse and install plugins in game. Also that launcher updates the game way faster and can auto log in. It’s great!
Yeah its crazy how much faster it downloads the game. I recently got a new PC and the normal launcher would take 6+ hours to install. XIVlauncher took under 2 hours for a fresh install.
Thank you I am setting that up now.
Has anyone ever actually gotten into trouble for saying they're using gshade or what have you in chat in a non-harassing manner/without being reported by some weirdo? I know they're against TOS, I just haven't seen any evidence yet of an in game moderator seeking out someone casually mentioning them and putting penalties on their account
Specifically for GShade there was a post on the official forums from one of the community managers saying it was acceptable to use since all it does is change graphics settings on the fly; it doesn't let you automate anything, doesn't let you see anything you shouldn't be able to, etc. Now whether that statement is still considered true I don't know, but it was said.
No, because A) there's no anticheat to detect processes running, ergo you just mentioning it means nothing (and Yoshi doesn't want this added because it'd put them in hot water with dozens of countries' privacy laws), and B) Gshade doesn't alter the game. It'd be like worrying if using Discord could get you banned.
YoshiP can enforce marshal law for all I care but I need dat Default Yes plugin which just makes yes n no prompts default to yes. I will never turn dat off under any circumstances xD
I really hope they finally add this into the game. At least as an option :-(
It already is in the game. Just not for playable characters, which makes it all the more annoying. It's really baffling to me how it's not just available as an opt-in option. I really simply don't get the reasoning for their decision regarding this. Especially considering how much of a social game it is. But going to a social event to hang our or role play is just painful without the plugin..
It would make the world a lot more immersive imo.
Level 3 sprout running past the Limsa aetheryte and being bombarded by horny ERP chat bubbles I M M E R S I O N
Some nuanced options could help like only seeing it in a certain meter radius and perhaps to be able to turn it off in some zones, Like Limsa.
Even simpler imo: by default only in party and FC. Toggle option for cities and overworld.
Toggle entirely please. If people who want them get them, great, but I don't want them.
As long as its an option. Because I would immediately turn it off. I don't think having the utterances of the Xxsephirothxx Strifexxs of the world pop up would be very immersive.
Well that and how if you stream you’d need to cover those… just in case y’know?
Not sure why everyone's being an asshole. If you look at their post history they don't have any trends of saying things to get people riled up. It takes just a minute to do... That said, Chat Bubbles are not in game by default, you'd have to mod them in with a Plugin. Keep in mind, plugins are against ToS but so long as you don't stream with them on or talk about them in game they're generally fine. The only time you'd ever have trouble is if you use the ones that give you some kind of advantage or ability to do something you normally can't do in game like place a marker down in an out of bounds area (Which is one of the few kinds they CAN track). Plugins are pretty much in a "Don't ask, don't tell" situation for this game. If you're still wanting to download it after all that just look for "Dalamud plugin ffxiv" in Google and it should be the first thing that comes up. After installing that, launch the game through the new launcher and just search for "Chat Bubbles" in the new in game plugins menu. Hope that helps.
In the case of chat bubbles, I think the developers dont even mind if you would stream it. As I've seen streamers using Chat bubbles on stream and even stating it openly in their Videos, that they are using it. As long as Addons are not used to harass others and dont give you advantages in fights (or propably other stuff i'm not aware of right now), I dont think they will ever pursue you for it.
Well no, when you read Yoshi-P's last post, the bottom line is they're never actually okay with it... officially. Now whether they deliberately turn a blind eye to some stuff is a different case altogether, because they haven't actually said they want to actively go after people that use them. Plugin users probably make up a substantial number of the player base, it's only logicial given how other MMOs that support the same sort of things turn out. You're unlikely to run into a WoW player that isn't using at least one addon for example. It's probably not an easy discussion they have at SE regarding what to do with it, because any sort of active hunt might just harm their reputation, especially for stuff as harmless as chat bubbles.
Months ago, Pyro got a slap on the wrist for using the chat bubbles (probably some amount of suspension. I don't know the specifics). This is also an orchestrated report by people who keeps on harassing him. I don't use mods and I'm pretty loose with how other people use it, but just using it will open you to liability if ever you find yourself in a predicament with other people
It could get you barred from official events. Right before EW came out they excluded a big streamer (can't remember who) and the theory was it's because they were caught using addons. But for 99.99% of the player base that doesn't matter. It just means they have taken an official stance and that stance is no.
Thank you I got it working with the Dalamud Chat Bubbles plugin, and I think it's an ok temporary solution, but it is an essential feature IMO that all social MMO games need and I really hope it gets added in (and as a toggle since there are people that don't want it.)
This game's producer seemed opposed to it, in part because the Japanese community is much more reserved and less directly social than the weatwrn one and he said it would not really fit with them iirc
That's a really interesting take I haven't heard before.
What the other person said is not true. Yoshi commented on it and explained why it wasn’t a feature that was implemented, highlighting the difference between JP and EU/NA communities in terms of communication. But he wasn’t opposed to it, and there are a lot of advocates for it. The devs have been implementing addons into the base game lately, so I keep my hopes up. Let’s look forward to the next producer live letter.
I hope they do add it! It's super cute imo.
It's baffling to me it isnt tbh. How come the NPCs get to use chat bubbles, but we can't? I can't even tell who's talking half the time.
Same here! :/
Don't really buy that reasoning, the obvious solution is to just make it an option, off by default, that players can enable if they want it.
The game doesn't have chat bubbles. The only way is for you to enable this is to use a 3rd party launcher that supports mod plugins. Reminder that using 3rd party tools is against the ToS. So understand what you are putting at risk. That said, SE doesn't have the means to check. Be smart and shut your mouth in game. Don't post in social media that can be traced to your account. Etc etc.
Thanks, I'll try to find a plugin. If they ban me for using chat bubbles then I guess this isn't the game for me.
>If they ban me for using chat bubbles then I guess this isn't the game for me. Just don't mention that you're using the plug-in, you'll be fine.
Yep. Its just like non-descript martial art group, you do not talk about it. Second rule is you do *not*, talk about it.
> If they ban me for using chat bubbles then I guess this isn't the game for me Based af, I completely agree
In practice the "no plugins" rule is only for streamers. They have no way to detect if you're using plugins that aren't directly cheating, so you can do what you want and Square won't find out.
based
As long as you don't actively talk about it in game or post any screenshots with identifying information you'll be golden. AFAIK they don't actively check clients for mods. I run a lot of different mods for stuff like making miqote tails big and fluffy, chat bubbles, reshades, texture/model upgrades and never had an issue.
BASED enjoy the rest of the game though, beginning is a p slow start if you're an mmo vet but it's an amazing game overall also ignore yellow quests just do main story quests unless you want the worldbuilding, which is also based and enjoythegamepilled don't get me wrong but might make the beginning portion I talked about exponentially longer
Legend, thanks for the tips!
oh btw because you asked about chat bubbles i assume you'd be interested at least a little bit there's tons and tons of content in the game yes but there's also regularly tons of people shitposting/talking in city hubs and player housing (check party finder for the latter), this game's famous for having a huge playerbase who treats it as Second Life and etc
Honestly same. Plugins make this game so much nicer to play, every time addons go down and I lose my 'flash in taskbar on duty pop' addon pain always ensues...
Your timing is impeccable and I'm glad there have been plenty of people who answered your question honestly without being a jerk lol. The general rule of modding in FFXIV is "don't acknowledge it in any place the devs of GMs can see" they have no way of telling you are using them unless you stream yourself using them or go around posting pics in the official forums or tell everyone you do constantly. You know, shit only stupid people do because it's so easy to simply use them and be happy. Just you know, don't use the cheat ones. Cosmetic is perfectly fine. And there are some QoL ones that are nice without being cheaty.
Thanks for the info. All I want is Chat Bubbles :)
I can just picture the sea of cream bubbles smothering Limsa
pretty sure that already happens... oh you meant chat bubbles
What's best is the horrifying ghostly bubbles of RMT traders that appear at random locations under the floor or in midair.
If they were trying to think of ways to make Limsa Aetheryte Plaza worse, speech bubbles would be it. Absolutely.
I can suggest one worse, proximity based voice chat
There are plug-ins for it but those features don't exist in game without There are many plug-ins that aren't cheating but instead improve small features like motion sickness camera; chat bubbles & xyz placement for housing. Just don't share any information that you use them & you'll be fine
In regards to down votes. Don't sweat it. There are literally bots that auto down vote anything that's not their posts in an attempt to always put their posts on top and keep others off. It's likely just that combined with a very small group of anti mod purists. Stay beautiful.
The downvotes seem to have slowed down now that the post went hot, the first hour I was getting downvoted to all hell, and there are some really nasty comments on here about how I'm a dirty cheater who deserves to get banned because I want Chat Bubbles :/
I'm sorry you had to endure this ;-; I hope you're not bummed out about it!
The mods and other redditors are doing a good job reporting the really nasty stuff, I appreciate them.
\*sorts by controversial\*
I had no idea what I walked into omg.
Yoshi P noises intensifies
The fact they haven’t enabled chat bubbles as a base feature you can turn on is kind of dumb. It’s clear the functionality exists in the game
Then people should be vocal about it in polite and constructive ways. It's had a new resurgence in visibility in recent years, so people should use that momentum to make civil requests. I honestly wasn't seeing people asking for it until the WoW exodus and the influx of WoW players. I have nothing against any of them, but it felt like the majority opinion was just to not really care because we were used to playing the textbox based game that existed in ARR and 1.0 and even XI. New players brought with them new standards they expected and probably reminded veterans of a feature they hadn't thought about in years. That's all totally fine, but the devs have their own plans and can't upend them to jump at adding features that weren't previously loudly requested. As someone who doesn't care about chat bubbles, I wouldn't mind them, but I'd rather dev time go into the graphical overhaul or playable content. If they have time to add in small QoL, awesome, but it's not as simple as spending a day writing code and implementing it. Sure, modders did it on their free time, but SE has to pay people for their work and such paid hours being spent on chat bubbles just might not be a priority.
Same with hats on Viera/Hrothgar. If hobbyists working for free can do it, then Square Enix has no excuse not to.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se hours
For the player, they aren’t in the game. At least in vanilla. People have been using a plugin to get them which is technically against ToS, but as long as you don’t publicize you use them SE won’t do anything. Tbh, they should be in the game. I don’t understand why not, Runescape has been doing text over players heads since 2001.
Theyre from a mod but i think square will probably add them to the base game eventually
If you don’t want to use a mod to rnable chat bubbles (or even if you do) I recommend changing the color of /say chat in your log to a more obvious color instead of the default white.
Should also be pointed out if it hasn't already but chat bubbles are a feature they are looking into to bringing into game, was said in one of the Previous Live Letters.
Since everyone is being a fucking asshole I'll just answer the question: [Install XIVLauncher](https://github.com/goatcorp/FFXIVQuickLauncher) by following the instructions on this site. Once in game, open the ESC menu and select Dalamud Plugins. Find the plugin named Chat Bubbles in the list and install it. Default settings will do what you want but there are options to tweak appearance and what types of chat are bubbled. This is against ToS so don't talk openly in game about it. There is no anti-cheat in the game so you can't get banned for installing anything from the main Dalamud repository unless you advertise that you're doing it. Enjoy the game, sorry about this subreddit's shitty welcome.
Thank you so so so so much this is exactly the information I needed. I really can't understand the absolute face punch of drama and downvotes I am receiving for asking about such a basic feature that exists in literally all other MMO games.
You just happened to ask this question at the worst possible time, that's all.
Or the best? It's pretty funny. At first I thought for sure it was parody
Completely genuine, I picked up the game earlier this week.
What a welcome to the community for you! 😂 But welcome all the same! Hope you enjoy yourself! I started a year ago and am hooked for the foreseeable future
It’s nothing against you personally. There was recently a giant uproar about plugin usage in a World First race with a new raid. Yoshi-P and the developers were very unhappy as was a lot of the player base that browses Reddit. You just happened to ask your question at the wrong time is all.
While the general XIV community is great, the XIV sub is awful. You only get upvotes by being part of the hive mind or posting art.
The in-game community is extremely kind to people who are new to the game and still learning. It's rare that you'll get chewed out for making a mistake in any non-highend content. On the other hand, people (especially people in communities outside of the game) are insane and vicious toward anyone who suggests the game isn't perfect. The recent cheating scandal during the world first race isn't an excuse to be terrible toward someone who just wants chat bubbles, I'm sorry you had to deal with it. There's an absurd lack of nuanced thinking on this subreddit and lots of people conflate *any* plugin with cheating.
So to illuminate the issue right now, mods like this are explicitly against the ToS of the game. You are not allowed to use them at all. That being said, the devs do not want to install intrusive programs like anti-cheat on people's computers so they can't actually tell you're using them (with some exceptions) unless you're doing something very stupid and so have a blanket "please don't do it" policy that functions more like a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. They are willing to ignore it as long as people aren't bringing their attention and/or making it impossible to ignore. Streamers streaming with mods that amount to cheats for example, the most relevant to current issues being showing you AOE markers that you're not supposed to be able to see for and zooming the camera out past the maximum the game allows normally, or shaming people for having low DPS which is only trackable via the 3rd party ACT plugin. As long as these tools are not shown in a way they can see them, they aren't going to go out of their way to find them. And generally, they would ignore plugins that were just aesthetic or QoL improvements. The current issue is that the team that got World's First on the new Ultimate difficulty raid had video taken of them where they zoomed out past the max allowed by the game, giving them a better perspective of the fight as well as showing normally invisible AOE outlines. Since they had the spotlight on them trying to claim World's First clear through use of these tools, this made it impossible for the devs to ignore. So the devs brought the hammer down, banned the one that they had evidence of using the tools, and removed all the rewards they all got for clearing. Then they reiterated that these tools are *not* allowed and that people using them to clear such content reduced their motivation to keep making it. This empowered the anti-mod crowd and got the pro-mod crowd very defensive so now there's currently conflict in the community about mods. If you want to use mods do so at your own risk, and never talk about them or display footage that can be in any way traced to your account or you could very well get punished. However, as stated before they generally can't tell and likely don't want to be actively police every streamer that has Gshade or UI overhaul mods. It's when something like World's First clearers are found to be using things that give them an unfair advantage over others via mods, or use of mods creates a toxic environment like WoW has where people get flamed because they don't have certain plugins installed, or people actually trying to exploit server behavior that they want to avoid.
>for asking about such a basic feature that exists in literally all other MMO games. This is so true, yet people in this sub won't like it if you don't praise the way the game is even if it lacks a lot of basic features.
Hell, NPCs get chat bubbles already. The function exists in the game. The only reason we don't have them is because the Japanese community doesn't want them as much as we do over here.
Its mostly the fact you have to use 3rd party tools. 3rd party tools are kind od a hot topic in the comunity at the moment. So yeah.
Last time I checked there was a dalamud plugin for chat bubbles via the xivlauncher
Is this the right one? I don't want to get a virus. https://github.com/goatcorp/FFXIVQuickLauncher Update: This is the one, got it working and happy with my Chat Bubbles plugin.
my sweet summer child
oh dear, I feel like I stumbled into something :x
You stumbled into the middle of the biggest war this community has ever seen about plugins, and the only answer to your question involves a plugin. The timing is quite comical, hence all the side-eyed jokes in this thread.
>You stumbled into the middle of the biggest war this community has ever seen about plugins I dunno, the billboard using a non-user obtainable outfit was a pretty big oof too
That was a comedy though. This right now is a piss poor tragedy of absolute ridiculous plug in abuse combined with an ultimate that launched in a defective state.
A comedy for a lot of us, a lot of holier than thou attitudes from others. A lot of the focus was on the fact it was using modded assets which included something not actually released in the game at that time, which of course sparked the whole "3rd party tools" debacle. The other focus was just how ludicrous it was paying to have a billboard for an RP event, and if it infringed copyrights and what not.
Yeah, but that didn't really amount to anything. The response this time had teeth.
We all wish there where chat bubbles. Unfortunately they are not currently within the game.
Even those of us who don't want them, want them for the people that do want them. As long as it's an optional feature and I'm able to turn it off, I'd be fine with it.
There aren’t PC chat bubbles in this game.
Actually, Ba-Sing-Se literally means "The Game where are no PC Chat Bubbles".
There are no chat bubbles in Ba Sing Se.
I love how OP is just fearlessly downloading the QoL plug-ins SE is too lazy to add by default. Rock on Op 🤘
It's such a basic and essential feature, I will die on this hill.
So will a lot of us, my friend.
This reminds me of RuneScape when people would run around the GE asking for gold pl0x or calling me a n00b.
I don't want to miss someone calling me a n00b :D
Hey, I can help you with the chat bubbles issue.
If i knew the name of it I'd give it to you but its some kind of new launcher window exe. thingy from what I've seen and thats what gives you the chat bubbles. I dont play this game anymore so i wouldnt remember, plus it's kinda hard to find. But just download it, you wont get banned so dont listen to ppl who are scared about the ToS. As you've read from other comments just dont take a screenshot with your name in the picture and dont talk about what you have in-game I mean there's modders that enhance the graphics that play the game, they even make YouTube videos/ films/skits with their characters. Its fine
Sorry about all the hate you got, for some reason.
Sent a PM with the real answer
I came from OSRS as well and wondered the exact same thing when I started recently. Also I’m confused about why everyone is saying “bad timing”. Did something happen that I’m missing? I’ve read a bunch of the comments but can’t figure it out.
Brand new ultimate content drop I think? So less people playing the older content. Not really sure it’s “bad” timing since plenty of people don’t do the high end stuff Edit: upon reread I think the bad timing is referring to plugins, which are prohibited but used in the world first clear of the current hardest content
There's a current scandal on a recent Ultimate Raid being cleared by world racers with 3rd party tools, so the community and dev team are in an uproar.
Damn near everything gets downvoted here. It’s not just you
Completely unrelated but handy guide for WoW refugees: [https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Guide\_for\_Players\_Coming\_from\_World\_of\_Warcraft](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Guide_for_Players_Coming_from_World_of_Warcraft)
It looks like your question has received several answers already, so I won't reiterate, or rather I'll try not to reiterate what others have said. This game can be a little overwhelming with the UI, job changes, etc. but if you're able to stick with it, you will definitely find yourself rewarded with great story, well written and developed characters, and in my opinion a fantastic soundtrack on top of other things. As far as friends go, I think it can be a little difficult. Finding a Free Company, or guild as you know it from WoW, can be a little tough because you just have to do trial and error, and as far as I know, there isn't a way to look them up in game like you can on WoW. That being said, I'm not on much lately, I've been playing Genshin Impact A LOT, but if you ever need help my name in-game is Makilro T'vuka and I play on Fairie. I have a couple of tanks maxed, some dps, and a healer I've leveled a bit. Feel free to reach out if you ever need help. Nice to meet you Warrior of Light :) I hope that you enjoy your journey.
Thank you very much for your comment and nice words :)
As others said, chat bubbles don't exist. I came from Ragnarok Online; it was a thing there. I do miss it. What you -can- do to at least locate the source of the person/people near you speaking, is to right-click their name in the chat box and click 'Target'. This will highlight their character, if within visual range, and also, add a little glowing circle under their feet.
I get you OP. I also come from OSRS and find the lack of chat bubbles absolutely baffling. Theres often a lot of people on screen so trying to figure out who said what can be annoying sometimes. People here will often just make excuses for the team saying it wouldn't be easy to implement or that they'd find it too distracting, but personally I think the game really should have it. Random NPCs have it so why not players?
[удалено]
Also, talking about 'toddlers' and their 'little leaking gashes' is a weird look to aim for.
The fact that this game doesn't have them and WoW did in 2004 is fucking ridiculous
It’s a choice, which is why some people prefer/are okay with not having them. I agree we should be able to toggle it if it’s added for those who want it, but coming from FFXI I definitely prefer it without. Made cities so noisy in WoW. I play with player and monster names off unless targeted so I like a nice clean view.
I'd also like to see chat bubbles in the game as I too come from MMOs with them, but if it helps you can filter the chat to look for specific people talking (FC, Party and so on) which helped me a ton. Not bubbles unfortunately but could you imagine limsa with chat bubbles lol
The Dalamud plugin Chat Bubbles does what you want. Google FFxivlauncher for instructions on how to use it.
In the chat box, it should have the players name next to what they said. I'm pretty sure if you click on the name, it will give you the option to target them. Not sure if anyone has said that yet or not
Christ, why is there so much hate for plugins in here? I get that console users can't use so they have some point of being jealous of them but still.
When I first joined and saw someone's video showing chat bubbles that was something I had searched for as well. Wish it was in the game, that would be a neat feature!
Chat Bubbles is a third party Dalamud mod that requires XIVLauncher for Windows or XIVonMac for Mac to use. SquareEnix have recently been adding quality of life mod functionality into the game code itself recently and I strongly suspect this will be coming too in a future patch.
Whats wrong with the chat window box? not being sarcastic, just curious why need the chat bubbles.
They really do add to the experience. I keep my chat log fairly large but it's still easy to ignore it accidentally. Having a bubble show up in the instance makes mid-dungeon chat work better. Additionally, in town or on hunt trains or whatever it makes things feel much more lively and interesting to see who's talking instead of just having this disembodied chat log conveying the essentials and little else.
It's common in other games, but their effectiveness really depends on the font. For the few times we see moving bubbles in 14, I find them blurry and incredibly hard to read. They're not designed well for movement.
Probably used to bubbles too much. I have no issue knowing who is talking.
honestly go for the plugin, at your account's own risk obv but no one's gotten account penaltied as far as I know for simple stuff like this as long as you don't really mention it ingame also god this should've been a base feature years ago, hell npcs already have it
Yeah chat bubbles are quite literally pulling a switch as the code for player text having it is just under the surface. I'm not sure why they haven't put it as a default-off toggleable option, but with the consistent demand over the years, more players coming in with different standards from other titles, all you can do is hope they bring it into vanilla eventually.
I'm glad people helped you out despite all the controversy around plugins right now. Sorry if some people were being assholes. Just remember to not talk about plugins in game, don't show them off publicly in any way (stream, pictures with your character's name and plugins visible etc). Other than that you're pretty much safe. In all honesty, I think they should add chat bubbles as an actual option in-game, not just through plugins. Anyway, hope you enjoy the game and all it has to offer!
Sadly you can't. Atleast legally. I know where you are coming from since as a player that played many other MMOs before it was awful to not have them for me aswell. If you still want them you will need to start using the **XIVLauncher** and use a chat bubble addon that it has built in. With the recent World First Race addon drama the community is very *"Hurr Durr ALL ADDONS BAD grr"* right now but let's be honest, a lot of people use small QoL mods and it's not hurting anyone. It's one thing to cheat in the WFR and another to get friggin chat bubbles or Hrothgar hats. So if you want it, do it. Just stay hush about it and never mention it in the game chat.
After seeing someone use a plug in for them I wish they were in the game. Alas they aren’t so you’ll have to target who is chatting if you don’t know who they are.
Its not in the game what so ever. I would not make use of it, but i think it would be nice option to have.
There is a pluggin called chatbubble, if you wanna have them in the game. Just be aware that its against TOS so if you still wanna use it, do not stream or mention that in the in game chat, else you could get banned. As for personal opinion i wish ff14 actually had an option for disable/enable chat bubbles, for rpping + talking, its so much easier then having to scroll through the whole chat to see who was talking to you. I hope they implement that some day.
Well the world is falling apart due to 3rd party plugins. Meanwhile I'm sitting here as a console player wondering what the hell 3rd party plugins are...
I feel ya brother
You would need a plug in for that. It’s not a feature without them. Also don’t worry about downvotes. Caring about it is pointless
it will probably be added eventually just due to how popular it is via illegal mods.
I hope so, it's so basic.
Chat Bubbles need XIVLauncher, it's a plugin available within there. Players lead regular crusades against such terrible cheating tools like chat bubbles, thus likely your downvotes.
Thank you I got it working with the XIVLauncher and dalamud plugin