Text Chat on consoles - Pros and cons

Lleksu · July 2015

In the interest of keeping a discussion going regarding text chat on consoles but also trying to keep it civil; I thought we could each leave what we see as pros and cons for both text and voice communication.

I presume a nice constructive list that Zenimax can easily read will hopefully prove more useful than arguments and flame wars

Text Chat

Pros:

Allows the deaf and hard of hearing to participate in the game socially
Able to see communication between multiple guilds / parties at a glance
Makes roleplaying viable for those who cannot / prefer not to voice act
Finding a team to run content / PvP is far simpler for those without decent guilds or friends online
Gives those who are shy or prefer a level of anonymity a way to communicate
Easy to monitor and record antisocial behaviour and take appropriate action
Can communicate with greater number of people
Can organize / command armies in Cyrodil
Able to sell / buy to wider range of people
Has no accents or language barriers

Cons:

Will take up some screen space when in use
Is slower
Can only really be used out of combat
Can be a bit cumbersome for some
Can communicate with greater number of people
Potential for spammers
Needs a button to activate (Right on the D pad to select Quests is a complete waste of a button though IMO )
Potentially requires additional hardware if you prefer a proper keyboard

Voice Chat

Pros:

Is fast
Perfect for communication during combat
Requires no additional clutter on screen
Requires no additional buttons (although push to talk should be able to be toggled IMO)
Great for socialising / banter with friends

Cons:

Completely unusable for the deaf. Basically useless for the hard of hearing
Can only communicate with a single group at a time
Is not persistent. ie. If you miss a message it is gone
Can be incomprehensible due to poor quality, difficult to understand accents, etc.
Impossible to monitor behaviour
Noise pollution. ie. People playing music, burping, dogs barking, etc.
Limits buying or selling to much smaller groups
Potentially requires additional hardware if you prefer a proper headset

To some up my opinion, BOTH are absolutely necessary and BOTH have their pros and cons.

I look forward to seeing what the rest of you guys come up with.

Bleakraven · July 2015

Thanks for this, agreed with everything you posted.
Adding to your list...

Text Chat
Pro:
Can scroll through text in case of missed messages / looking for best offers
Can communicate area-wide
Can communicate and monitor multiple guilds at the same time
Easier to see who is looking for what
Easier to roleplay and perform emotes (instead of having the character turn around and look in their bag...)
Easier for shy people to communicate

Con:
No notification to see new messages(?)

Voice Chat
Pro:
Very useful if you want to share something fast with your group (enemies incoming, etc.)
Fun for friends
Easy to explain complicated stuff fast

Con:
Cannot easily mute or change the volume of select players
Limited range
Difficult to tell who is inviting for groups/which character is talking in a crowd
Accents and low-quality microphones can make it easy to misunderstand what others say
Less usable at night (neighbours, roommates, sleeping family, etc.)
Can be frustrating to use in a crowd

You've already listed pretty much everything, good job

Now it's all up to ZOS.

BackFreckle · July 2015

How is being able to communicate to a greater number of ppl a con? Lol that's why we need it so we can talk to ppl that are more than 2 feet next to me

But to the cons about it's "cumbersome" or it" takes too much space" , other games have options to resize or even turn off completly.

Honestly why can't we just have both? Lol wtf seriously

theforgottenking1779 · July 2015

This Is just stupid that zenimax is so ignorant they didn't even put one of the simplest things in the game for people to use such as text chat on console i swear they are ruining the elder scrolls franchise i'm about to stop playing and just wait until the next elder scrolls single player game to come out

Kammakazi · July 2015

The only people against Text Chat are casuals, and it hinders players like me.

Bleakraven · July 2015

BackFreckle wrote: »

How is being able to communicate to a greater number of ppl a con? Lol that's why we need it so we can talk to ppl that are more than 2 feet next to me

But to the cons about it's "cumbersome" or it" takes too much space" , other games have options to resize or even turn off completly.

Honestly why can't we just have both? Lol wtf seriously

@Lleksu said he is for both, so am I. They are just trying to list what they've gathered are the pros and cons according to several people and, most likely, the now locked thread about text chat on consoles. You'll see they also listed it as a pro - it's just that for some people, it can be a con (not sure why myself).