And yet still no chat!

They should've had chat in the game from day one. I just gotta hold on till Pantheon comes out!

I do not wish to chat with anyone. Never did on PC except for buying some things, never will on console.

I've never used it, but you can pull up a list of players currently in the Town zone you're in and there's a chat/message symbol next to their name. I assume that's to invite them to a chat. (Perhaps only if they are already in your group? No idea.)

An option for some public Chat form would be nice to have. Though, keeping bots out would be problematic. A squelch tool could work for players, but the bots will eventually change.

Blah at that. If you dont want to use it, then just turn it off. But chat, imo, helped keep the game from getting too isolated when I was on the PC. Groups are unnecessary enough as it is. Especially considering how overpowered we are. Had they been smart enough to include it since launch, they wouldn't have lost so many players imo. Chat would have helped a lot of new players who were intimidated by the huge ass skill tree. Chat would have helped people understand a lot of the dos and don'ts in this game. And it would have helped people realize that the overwhelming vast majority of shit you loot in this game is trash...DONT PUT IT ON AUCTION. But....too late now. Game feels dead...esp on console.

Quite frankly, I never ever bothered about it not being a Chat thing. But I can see why some people wish to have it. But honestly, I do not care at ALL about it not being. IF in the chance of me want to play with a bigger Group for standard play, I would go to the PoE Club and quite simply just ask if someone was genuinely interested in playing in a Group.
I usually just go for playing the SSF Mode.