Built in Voice Chat on PC would help solve a lot of problems with PUGs

Athyrium93

The number of threads on here about how terrible PUGing is, especially in DLC dungeons seems to come down to a lack of communication in a lot cases. You read so many stories of people running through dungeons leaving their party behind, or missing mechanics, or skipping bosses, ignoring people that ask to do the quest, and/or just generally being new or bad. I imagine most of those people aren't actually jerks, they just don't realize what a problem it can be for others because it's so easy to ignore or miss the tiny little chat icon.
Most of these issues could be solved with better communication, it's hard to type out all the mechanics of a fight, but easy to just say them. It's easy to miss someone asking a question or asking to hold on a second in text chat, but if they could just say it verbally it would be much easier and quicker.
I think it would make the PUG experience a lot better, and a lot more friendly to newer players, since they often get left behind while typing up questions, and just ignored almost as often.

ESO is supposed to be a social game, I know a lot of people like to pretend it's a single player game with uncooperative NPC's instead of other players, but maybe if talking to each other was easier it would actually encourage more social game play... or maybe I'm completely off base and it's awful on console with their voice coms...

What does everyone else think?

SmukkeHeks

It’s a two way responsibility. If you want to speed run, it’s as much own responsibility as the one, who’s there for the quests and exploring.

For me, I’m not using voice chat. Because “how we talk to and about each other” are also a very wide concept. And I’ll sometimes talk to my cats. Nothing much, just daily small talk. I’ll be classified as weird in a heartbeat.

Lake

It would make little difference.

Voice chat is available on consoles but most people do not have a mic, or don't use theirs in PUGs.

gatekeeper13

Toxicity is already out of control in chat box. Imagine having a voice chat too.

Discord is fine for those who want to communicate more effectively.

SolidusPrime

I don't think it would help that much, personally. Communication has never really been the hindering factor.

Reinfarcements

So I am on Xbox and can tell you my experience.

Basically, most of the time people don't have their mic on. Thats the reality of the situation. However, when they do have a mic on, it is indeed much easier to convey information such as mechanics, stopping for a quest, finding a chest or heavy sack, ect.

A lot of the time you'll have only one guy in the group with a mic on, and its actually pretty crazy how much just one person talking and calling things out can make the whole experience much smoother, since even if you don't have a mic on you can still hear your group members talking.

I will admit I'm part of the problem many times. I don't always put my mic on out of pure laziness, however if I think it'll help when things are going bad I'll put it on.

PizzaCat82

It might help.. or it might be the same thing on consoles, who have built in voice...

No one has mics.

redspecter23

It might help sometimes, but in my experience, vet DLC dungeons are not balanced for average players and certainly not for pug groups full of average players without coms.

Communication can help, but turning someone from a 3k dps, light attack spam player into a 20k+ dps just doesn't happen magically when voice gets turned on. It's a larger issue that needs to be solved outside the dungeon environment and takes significant time.

Giving players information letting them know where they are at, relative to the difficulty of the dungeon ahead of them may be useful as right now, players have no clue about how hard something might be just by hitting the queue. That 3k dps may have worked just fine up until the point where it doesn't, then they get booted repeatedly and complain about the "toxicity" in the game community. Yes, there is some toxicity there, but some blame can be placed on an unprepared player as well.

Donny_Vito

In my experience for Vet dungeons (mainly referencing DLCs) on console, the PUGS who have voice communication tend to last a lot longer and therefore higher chance of success. Without mics, people are flaky. But once you start chatting, people tend to feel a bit of connection and responsibility to finish the dungeon. Obviously relaying tactics is helpful as well, but just the commitment itself that comes with communication is nice.

jlb1705

In my experience here is how I've seen other players using voice comms in dungeons on console:

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

There will be a whole lot of complaints and banning. I can just imagine ^^

Seminolegirl1992

100% hellllllll no. Discord exists

CMDR_Un1k0rn

Seminolegirl1992 wrote: »

100% hellllllll no. Discord exists

Not right now it doesn't LOL.

redgreensunset

CMDR_Un1k0rn wrote: »

Seminolegirl1992 wrote: »

100% hellllllll no. Discord exists

Not right now it doesn't LOL.

Discord down?

Gythral

Why re-invent the wheel
theres always mumble





(opps actual comms, not the program....)
other PC voice comms are available, some are even preinstalled...

TequilaFire

Cloudflare issues right now.

Danikat

Going by the fact that the most recent topic on the issue of players ignoring each other in dungeons was started by someone who plays on Xbox and PS4 I don't think a lack of voice chat is the source of the problem.

Kurat

Pugs remain pugs, nomatter comms or not. Even when running trials with guilds its sometimes pain to get people join discord. Alot of people must have social anxiety issues or something else because alot of times they drop group when asked to join comms lol. Built in voice wouldn't change anything.

idk

I have never seen a top PC game have built-in VoIP and it would seem to be for very good reason. The few games I have played that had VoIP I turned it off so I did not have to hear the nonsense coming out of people's mouths. One loses IQ points hearing some of that banter.

If you want to get your pugs into voice chat get Discord. If they are not willing to hop into Discord for you they are not likely to turn on in-game VoIP.

Best option is to form your own group from one of your guilds or get into a group being formed from guild. It is easy to do and almost always is going to turn out to be a much better run than a random GF pug.

kargen27

I like the OPs optimism but I don't think players who want to run to the end just to get their daily reward are going to slow down because someone in voice chat asked.
Any voice chat added to the game should be push to talk only. I hate open mics in Discord. Hate them!

idk

jlb1705 wrote: »

In my experience here is how I've seen other players using voice comms in dungeons on console:

Cut the size of all those wedges in half and add another wedge. Label the new wedge "Non-stop chatter that is irrelevant to the game leading most players to turn off the in-game VoIP.

Fischblut

I don't think it would help that much, personally. Communication has never really been the hindering factor.

Agree.
I never use voice chat, and it's not a problem in dungeons/arenas. Even in all normal and some vet trials (it's very difficult to get into vet trial without voice chat, unfortunately). And yes, I do group content with unknown random people most of time

vetDSA (before Greymoor, of course), vetDLC challenger achievements - people either know mechanics and don't say a word in chat except for "hi", or people type the most important mechanics in chat.
For DSA, usually we would say who goes into underground, and what tank will do during last boss fight (and call out the percentage of boss health in chat quickly before the threshold by typing +).

And I remember when some trial guild group in vAS was desperately lacking one DD, and I was invited to join them (even without me being in voice chat). I was especially proud that I died much less times than many other DDs (who were "in advantage" with voice comms ), simply because I knew the mechanics from informative videos and normal runs.

Linaleah

whenever I'm playing anything on console with other people, I disable voice completely. I don't just mean my mic, I mean I disable ALL voice. I do not want to listen to other people, because form experience - more often then not, its a toxic cesspit and I am NOT playing a game to let someone else take their anger with whatever out on me. I aint got time for that. judging by replies, its pretty much normal thing for console players.

voice gets enabled in closed groups with friends ONLY.

so having voice built in on pc will change absolutely nothing. people are ignoring text chat half the time, or use it to be terrible to their group members. what makes you think voice will be any different?

FrancisCrawford

idk wrote: »

I have never seen a top PC game have built-in VoIP and it would seem to be for very good reason.

LOTRO had built-in voice chat. It made Skirmish PUGs a lot more practical and fun.

Guilds usually went to higher-quality voice alternatives, such as Ventrilo or Teamspeak (this was long before Discord and a little before Mumble). But the built-in chat worked fine.

bmnoble

Even if they added voice chat, does not mean everyone will choose to hook up a mic and actually use it.

Tsar_Gekkou

I don't interact with dungeon pugs because I have nothing to gain from it. Trials are a different story of course, but I don't even have my headset on for dungeons

TheImperfect

No thanks, or only as optional. No proof of who said what and it would just be more work for little gain in my opinion.

Kiralyn2000

Additionally - oh, something more to stress their servers & infrastructure? Sure, great idea.

Sylvermynx

bmnoble wrote: »

Even if they added voice chat, does not mean everyone will choose to hook up a mic and actually use it.

Eh, even if I was into group content, I wouldn't. I can't deal with that sort of garbage in my ears while I'm trying to do an instance. Went through that in WoW and RIFT with my guilds (all family) - they all wanted (to begin with) to have voice "so we all knew what we were doing". Um.... that was NOT how it worked in practice - even for those with seriously great 'net (unlike me, where satellite is what I have, and voice chat is just not workable)

RedTalon

Wouldn't make a difference just another thing to mute, already have to turn off pages half of the day and toxic group chat in pugs.

McGordon

Need it for BG