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Adding Faction Names to Player Chat Messages

This guide explains how to display a player's faction name in chat using Improved Factions, PlaceholderAPI (PAPI), and a chat formatting plugin.

Requirements​

  1. Improved Factions
  2. PlaceholderAPI (PAPI) (Download from SpigotMC)
  3. A chat formatting plugin (e.g., EssentialsX or LPC Chat Formatter):

Steps​

1. Install the Plugins​

  • Download and add Improved Factions, PAPI, and a chat formatter (e.g., EssentialsX or LPC) to your server’s plugins folder.
  • Start your server to generate configuration files.

2. Add PlaceholderAPI Placeholders​

  • Improved Factions supports placeholders like %faction_name%, %faction_rank%, and others.
  • The placeholders should be automatically registered by improved factions - Check the server log, as Improved Factions will print a message saying that placeholders have been enabled.

3. Configure Chat Formatting​

EssentialsX (With ChatInjector)​

Essentials doesnt support placeholders out of the box, so a separate injector has to be used. The chosen injector uses instead of %

  1. Locate and open Essentials/config.yml.
  2. Find the format: key.
  3. Update it using {} for placeholders (specific to EssentialsX + ChatInjector): 
    format: "{DISPLAYNAME} [{faction_name}] >> {MESSAGE}"
  4. Restart the server.

LPC Chat Formatter​

  1. Install LPC (Download from SpigotMC).
  2. Update LPC’s configuration file to use % placeholders directly: 
    chat:
      format: "%player% [%faction_name%] >> %message%"
  3. Save and restart the server.

4. Handling Factionless Players​

By default, placeholders like %faction_name% may display nothing for factionless players. To fix this:

  • Use the configuration option default-placeholder for placeholders in the Improved Factions config.
  • Example: 
    default-placeholders:
     name: "No Faction"

5. Add Colors​

  • Add color codes to your format using & (or §).
  • Example (green faction names): 
    format: "{displayname} [&a{faction_name}&r] >> {message}"

6. Test Your Setup​

  • Join a faction in-game (/f create <name>) and check the chat formatting.
  • For factionless players, confirm the default value appears.

Troubleshooting​

  • Placeholder not showing: Verify PAPI is installed and placeholders are loaded (/papi parse me %faction_name%).
  • Factionless issue: Ensure default-values are set in the configuration file.
  • Essentials config missing: If format: is not found, switch to a dedicated chat plugin like LPC.

For further assistance, visit the Improved Factions Discord or report issues on GitHub.