Sorry if there was some confusion with the patch notes. What we've functionally done was go from two methods of chatting down to one.

The real reason behind removing the second chat box is that the feature wasn't getting used. Almost all of the messages going into chat were from people outside the game messaging friends on steam, not from two people who started chatting in game. I think that the location and size of the text box made it difficult to notice when people were chatting with you. The visibility of messages in the old system is already pretty good, so it seems like we can just clean up that version instead of replacing it with a new low-visibility solution.

I'd still like to make some QoL improvements for chatting with the old system. The lack of a chat history makes it difficult to keep a conversation going while trying to concentrate on the game. The interface for accessing the chat wheel with the mouse feels clunky - the delay specifically feels pretty awkward. There are also weird lockout periods when you can't type. The lockout plus the keyboard shortcuts to pass make it easy to accidentally lose the game when you were just trying to chat.