Crossplay and Voice Chat

Erickson9610 · November 14

If we get Crossplay, how do you suppose the Voice Chat feature from PlayStation and Xbox will be handled, considering PC lacks it? We know Crossplay will group all platforms by region, so PC, Xbox, and PlayStation will play together.

I see three options, but there may be others:

If it remains exclusive to console players, they could talk to one another without PC players hearing them — meaning you could talk to someone who cannot hear you or encounter people who you cannot hear.
If Voice Chat is fully implemented on PC, then all players would have the option to talk and listen to one another.
Maybe Voice Chat gets dropped entirely, even for consoles.

What do you think will happen?

DenverRalphy · November 14

Can't speak for Xbox, but on PSNA the built in ESO voice chat often takes a back seat to PSN chat. Mainly because the built in ESO vchat is... let's just say not spectacular.

The built in ESO voice chat would really need a complete feature rich overhaul with significantly improved performance. Most console players I know don't necessarily keep a pc/laptop nearby so only use discord via mobile/tablet for the text chat/channels functionality. Voice chat via the discord mobile app is attrocious.

I sure hope this is one of the numerous areas being explored/workshopped taking place before breaking ground. Becuase IMO it's a pretty significant piece of the puzzle.

Estin · November 14

I'm on the side that the built in voice chat should be implemented into the PC version. Before anyone gets worked up over it, the feature itself can be disabled, so you're going to be forced to listen to someone's bad music or people rambling with strange topics. I dislike on PC how you're forced to join some randos discord channel for a temporary run. It's also a pain to have to write out mechanic explanations to someone who needs them. It's also annoying having to write out commands in the middle of something, as well as hoping for players to read it because it's so easy to get tunnel vision and ignore the chat because bubbles are off by default. The built in voice being implemented into the PC version would solve all of those issues, and of course provide a way for console and PC to communicate with each other easily. You don't really expect console players to have to write out something 1 letter at a time just to communicate with a PC player, do you?

But yes, it will need some improvements. Higher quality to begin with so it doesn't sound like one of those MW2 (2009) voice chat argument videos. I would say that proximity chat should be implemented too, as well as death chat (being able to hear a person you killed for ~2 seconds) in PvP zones purely for entertainment purposes.

tomofhyrule · November 14

The devs have specifically said that they have no intention to add VC into the PC version because better alternatives exist in things like Discord or TeamSpeak, even though those are external.

Considering the current idea is also that they remove things from the game to conserve space, I could see the eventual decision to be removing the console VC feature, with the expectation that many of them would end up migrating to superior external sources like Discord in the first place.

I believe that Discord is also useable on all consoles, and even then it is not a requirement that the system running the game be running Discord as well. I actually use my phone for Discord VC when I'm playing normally, so those are two separate devices in the first place.

Poss · November 14

Console voice chat has been temperamental for 10 years. It’s NEVER worked flawlessly and I’m not expecting it to ever get addressed. Ten years of hard resetting and clearing caches… As soon as Discord became integrated into Xbox so it can be used like party chat, my guild switched straight away

fizzybeef · November 14

PS users can use discord too wich works more stable

DenverRalphy · November 15

PS5 users can link their consoles to discord. Sure. But they'd rather not unless they really had to. They like everything to be contained within the console itself, nice and tidy. Most would just rather go without than have to join or maintain a list of discord servers for random grouping.

The concept of Crossplay is supposedly for the benefit of all players. Console players are already weary from getting the short and of the stick in almost every case of Crossplay. Pushing a third party solution to replace and already existing built in component wouldn't be well received.

Djennku · November 15

I vote no on PC voice. My friends on console have shared all the experiences of it that I do not need to have personally.

Shartenn · November 15

No crossplay

Gabriel_H · November 15

If they added VC to the game, they would have to monitor said VC by law.

That's an expense they could do with out, as well as players being angry they are being monitored who don't appreciate that ZOS don't have a say in the matter.

Orbital78 · November 15

Personally don't really care as long as they limit the crossplay to group finder instances somehow. Not all groups require voice chat, if they do they will specify it.

Ishtarknows · November 15

I don't want PC and console to merge for crossplay. The PC economy is shot and console players will forever be poor relatives, never being able to afford prime trader spots, or even sub par ones. With the ability to trade effectively gone there's no real way to increase gold enough to compete so it'll be a death to console economy.
Merges between NA Xbox and NA PS/ EU Xbox and EU PS would be much better.

Edit:
As for game chat, nobody I know uses the in game chat. Most people use Xbox party chat for group content/hanging with friends and switch to Xbox Discord chat when party breaks (which has been happening too frequently lately).