Jadd Hatchen
Psygod9
D.E.F.I.A.N.C.E
18
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Posted - 2013.11.08 19:59:00 -
[1] - Quote
So it's been over two years now and even two EVE Vegas's where I've directly spoken to devs in person and pointed out problems with the voice comms in this game and how important fixing them is to the longevity of this game. And there are still many simple problems with the comms. I understand that the comms are not made by CCP, but rather another company was subcontracted for this, but you should be asking for your money back or something, because they still suck.
First off I want to impress upon you how important comms are to your gaming community. You could have all kinds of bugs or errors with every other aspect of the game or bad imbalance issues or a system that is very difficult for new players to understand. All of those issues can be overcome by your players as long as they are able to reliably communicate to one another and talk each other through them. But if the comms don't work well enough, then people stop using them. Then they stop helping each other out and then the community falls apart. End effect of bad comms is you loose players and thus money.
So here's a list of some of the problems that I've encountered with the current voice comms implementation and I ask others to add their observed problems as well.
- The current comms only allows for open mic (or "hot-mic") all the time or PTT (push to talk) modes. There is no VOX (voice activated x-mit) mode. This means that most players will leave thier mic's on all the time and then we get to hear babies cryiing, police sirens, and a plethera of other things that I would never want to hear. PTT would be an ok alternative, except you messed that one up (see next bullet) and most people don't want to try to run-and-gun and try to push yet another button to talk at the same time. Seriously, look into adding VOX.
- PTT mode is suppressed whenever you open any other windows. If you open the neocom, PTT no longer works. If you ope nthe chat to read someone's reply, PTT no longer works and you can't talk to them. If you open a map, call for a vehicle, do an orbital strike... PTT stops working and you can't coordinate anything with your teammates anymore! Also if a loading screen pops up, then the PTT stops working too? Worst of all, if you die, you cannot use PTT, but if you had simply left PTT off and used hot-mic instead then you can still talk?!? Why? If you are trying to say that if you are dead you shouldn't be able to talk to your teammates, then why am I still able to if I don't use PTT? For that matter you are creating a situation where players that opt to not use your voice comms and instead use ANYTHING ELSE for communication (telephones, skype, mumble, teamspeak, ventrillo, roger-wilco, office communicator, etc.) an advantage over your other players. With all the complaints you receive about P2W in the game, this is the ultimate P2W strategy for PC matches because your in game comms also add an additional layer of lag to PC matches! Fix it so that PTT will ALWAYS WORK. There is no reason not to unless you want to discourage players from using your in game voice comms! Another huge unintended consequence of this is that when you first enter a match you are on this long ass loading screen where you cannot activate the PTT followed by a map screen to select your spawn point where you STILL CANNOT USE PTT. This means that since you do not know what map you will be playing on until then, that to coordinate with your squadmates where you want to spawn at is impossible! No ability to discuss tactics or say go to A or B or anywhere or to ask for a ride or to state that you will be ordering in a vehicle. Nothing! How does this encourage cooperative play? Stop suppressing PTT!
- As I just touched on, the current implementation of your in game voice comms actually causes PC matches to lag. Such that if one side turns them off completely and uses something else (like a smart phone wirelessly hooked up to a teamspeak server using a smartphone app), and the other side uses the in game voice, the in game voice side will almost certainly loose as they will be guaranteed to have higher latency across the board. This is a broken advantage and is one way in which "pro" teams will P2W every damn time. Fix this!
- Speaking of advantages to not using your comms, in game voice comms only work IN GAME. But what happens if someone drops out of game (ie. crashes back to the PS3 operating system). With out of game comms I just tell my coprmates what's up and log back in, but for in game comms they think I'm a **** and left or worse. Additionally, other advantages and abuses can be gotten by using out of game comms vs. in game comms. So why not make your comms be able to be logged into outside of game and run in the background or something?
- Currently I have no way to know who is talking on voice? Even if you are in chat, the green lights seldom match up with who is actually speaking and if you are in a large enough chat where the list scrolls off the screen then you will never know who was speaking. (And if you are using PTT, trying to keep the chat open to listen and see who is talking and then extit so that you can use the PTT to talk is retardedly difficult.) Please add in something similar to an "overlay" so that when someone in your comms speaks, it will put thier name at the top of the screen so that you know who is talking.
{WTF, character limit reached. Will continue this on next reply...}
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Jadd Hatchen
Psygod9
D.E.F.I.A.N.C.E
18
|
Posted - 2013.11.08 19:59:00 -
[2] - Quote
- Another advantage that out of game comms has mastered, but your in game comms is nowhere near doing is tiered communications. You have divided teams into three separate squads, but provided no way for the squad leaders to coordinate with each other?!? How dumb is that? There should be a way to choose to speak either on squad or team chat for squad leaders while listening to both. Failing that, everyone should be able to listen to both squad and team, while PTT can be set to either squad or chat. Hell there are multiple ways to skin this cat, but you have chosen none of them.
- Bug, if you have PTT enabled and you are holding it down to speak and a loading screen pops up or you die and go to any other screen where you would normally not be able to use PTT, then it becomes "stuck" in that state. This can be cleared after the situation is no longer present (ie. the loading is done, you respawn, etc.) by pressing the PTT button again.
That's all I got for now, but I'll add more as I think of it.
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