Separate Voice Channel for Squad

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Mutant Freak, Jan 28, 2008.

  1. Mutant Freak

    Mutant Freak Member

    Messages:
    31
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    So here's something that's been bugging me for a while. When I'm in a game with a large amount of people, especially people who are good, organized players, and who use squad tactics, act in units, and use their mics, I frequently find that there are (because of the sheer number of people in game) at least 2 people talking on their mics at any given time.

    I find this quite annoying, since a lot of it is either mindless chatter non-game related, or squad specific goings-on on the other side of the map that don't relate to me. This is going to be a growing problem when support for the Episode 2 engine is added, and server sizes & player numbers can jump up to 64.

    My idea: Create a separate voice chat channel that broadcasts only to members in your squad. This type of communication could have some sort of radio 'click' beforehand to make it easily distinguishable from global chat. Alternatively, the squad mate's name could highlight a different color.

    Pros:
    • If people used it appropriately, this would eliminate excess radio chatter that is not relevant to 3/4 of the other players in the game.
    • Could save people time asking others to repeat what was said, since someone else was talking at the time.

    Cons:
    • If used incorrectly, people could accidentally talk to their squad, thus failing to relay information to their team that is vital to the team's survival. They would then have to re-state the information on the all team voice chat.
    • I'm not sure how it would be coded, but I think it could be done w/ some modifications to the current voice chat system.

    Alternatives:
    • Leave the current system as it is? This seems like it will be a growing problem in the future though as more and more people use mics, and as support for more players is added.
    • Create a toggle button / hot key which would toggle between broadcasting to everyone / broadcasting to just your squad. This could have problems with people forgetting which one they're on, talking to the wrong group, then having to switch and repeat themselves. This could also become quite annoying having to switch chat groups back and forth just to say one quick thing. Having a separate key for speaking to your squad alone seems like a better option.
    • Instead of broadcasting to your squad, create a separate way of speaking that goes out to just people nearby to you. (A few hundred game units?) This also doesn't seem as useful as the squad option though.

    Please let me know what you guys (devs included) think of this. :rolleyes: I think it would be a very useful feature to see in some future release. I'll update this list of pros & cons as needed if other people come up with some good ones.

    *last edit 2/1 - added radio 'click' idea - thanks DeadlyDad / Qwert*
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2008
  2. Grizzly

    Grizzly BEAR SIZED DOORS

    Messages:
    468
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    This is how you make a sugestion btw :D
     
  3. Vessboy

    Vessboy Member

    Messages:
    1,519
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I Agreed with it last time and I agree again.
     
  4. Dubee

    Dubee Grapehead

    Messages:
    8,636
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Yeah I like this.. Its hard to hear and talk when so many other people are talking about what research they like.. And if your in a squad you can tell people hey behind you! with out everyone on your team getting paranoid for a second... and maybe a mute all but comm button? or we can do it by hand
     
  5. Mutant Freak

    Mutant Freak Member

    Messages:
    31
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    lol Quite a while ago I read the official format for making suggestions, and I actually replicated this completely out of memory b/c I couldn't remember where I read the thread on correct formatting. Glad I did it right. :-)

    grapehead - A mute all but comm button it seems would prevent you from sometimes receiving useful information from your teammates, I don't think I would use it under any circumstances. Even if people were mic spamming constantly and I could barely understand anything, I still wouldn't block everyone out on the chance that the spammers stopped, and I heard something useful / legitimate. I don't know about anyone else though.

    And congrats on your guys (JPL's) victory over BSID. I watched Evan's demo, you did amazing. :-) The BSID's were on vent constantly yelling about how you were mortaring & mining them all to death, heh.
     
  6. Private Sandbag

    Private Sandbag Member

    Messages:
    7,491
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I agree with this, it'd be really useful. And would probably encorage people to work in squads a tad too.
     
  7. MomoZMonster

    MomoZMonster Member

    Messages:
    325
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Wow what a great idea! I've wanted something like this before! Is it even possible?
     
  8. Eng4G3

    Eng4G3 Member

    Messages:
    9
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I have also though this would be a good Idea. Maybe for the toggle idea there could be a small indicator to show what channel you're on by the minimap?
     
  9. Reef

    Reef Member

    Messages:
    795
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2008
  10. DeadlyDad

    DeadlyDad Member

    Messages:
    206
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Awesome idea! My DoD unit uses a 'radio' mode, along with 'voice prox' to let squad leaders talk to each other at a distance, while only allowing voice chat to be heard within a certain range. (Essentially a local 'alltalk'.)

    To prevent the 'I-need-a-bigger-keyboard' syndrome, I would implement it using the current voice chat key like this:
    • Single tap & hold: Global talk. No 'tick' heard as you start to speak. Everybody hears you. (Current style)
    • Double tap & hold: Local talk. Single 'squelch' heard as you start to speak. Everybody within a certain range hears you, regardless of squad.
    • Triple tap & hold: Squad talk. Double 'squelch' heard as you start to speak. Everybody in your squad hears you, regardless of range.

    The 'squelch' is to give you a better idea of how to proceed. For example, if an engineer just hears "I need a fix", he generally ignores it if he is busy, as that could be coming from anywhere on the map. OTOH, if he hears a single squelch first, he at least knows that the guy needing repairs is somewhere in the local area, so he will be more inclined to try to find out exactly where he is, to help him.
     
  11. Mutant Freak

    Mutant Freak Member

    Messages:
    31
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    That seems pretty reasonable. I'd leave the final decisions on key mapping and things like that to the devs, but this seems like a pretty good way to implement it. Having to tap the same key 3 times to say something reminds me a little bit of clicking my ruby red slippers together 3 times to go home, it could get annoying after a while, but other than that.. :-).

    I'm not sure that a 'Local talk' option would even be necessary all that often though. It only would really apply in a fairly specific situation of
    IF someone is near you and needs to be alerted to something quickly
    AND IF that person is not in your squad.
    The voice chat covers this situation right now, and it's not a horrible mess.

    I think some improvement to the voice chat system would be nice, though adding both local & squad wouldn't be necessary, IMO.

    /ramble
     
  12. Vessboy

    Vessboy Member

    Messages:
    1,519
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    The multiple pressing my be confusing. How about commanders get global, Squad leaders get there squad and the commander, and basic troops get squad chat. With a 40 ft localized chat enabled for all. And for a foot soldiers message to get to the com it mus go through the squad leader. Thus adding a "dumb request" filter.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2008
  13. Reef

    Reef Member

    Messages:
    795
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Simple is good.
    The current system should be left 'as is'.
    Second button that enables squad-only communication should be implemented.

    Unlike BF2, there will be no speciall channel for communication btween commander and squad leaders, those things will go on public channel -> better communication on what commander is doing (in BF commander barely does anything at all, unlike Empires where research, buildings, part of coordination - are all comm-dependent).

    Easy to implement, easy to learn, You need to bind one more thing, but You will never miss a click and get the whole thing wrong. It's instantly learnable. Local chat is something that should not be implemented (we don't know many games that would have it, ever wondered why?).
     
  14. Fallen-Hero

    Fallen-Hero Member

    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I love this idea so complicated useing vent when only say 2 of my 5 sqaud members got ventrillo so to just do it all in squad be so nice
     
  15. Qwert

    Qwert Member

    Messages:
    72
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I suggest to split the audio stream for the various kinds of voice chat:

    Squad Chat on the left channel and Global on the right, Com should get a slightly volume boosted mic that uses both channels to distinguish him, and possibly even have a radio 'click' to signify a radio message and have Local voice be directional in both channels without a 'click.'

    This should adequately distinguish who is talking when, rather than have it jumble up. Naturally, have the dual channel thing disabled for those weird people whit mono systems.
     
  16. DeadlyDad

    DeadlyDad Member

    Messages:
    206
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Stereo positioning voice chat is not a bad idea. I use the same thing with with Vent. (setup/SFX/pan -> left) What would be even better is to have the voices come from the direction that they actually are.
     
  17. Mutant Freak

    Mutant Freak Member

    Messages:
    31
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Having voice chat required to go go through the squad leader to get out to the rest of the team seems like it would prevent vital information from getting out quickly if required. I don't think that's such a great idea.

    Stereo positioning for different types of voice chat is an interesting idea, though a click of some sort before the broadcast might be easier to distinguish.
     
  18. Vessboy

    Vessboy Member

    Messages:
    1,519
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    If the squad is acting as a squad should the sqouad leader will know as soon as the soldier dose. Besides What can the com do?
     
  19. Mutant Freak

    Mutant Freak Member

    Messages:
    31
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I'm not sure I understood all of what you were trying to say.. but the commander can give attack orders to infantry in need of orders, and that greatly helps out infantry. A lot of times a comm will get distracted with things at base or looking other places, and he forgets about a group of infantry, and forgets to update their attack orders. As such, it would be very helpful to not have to request permission from your squad leader to be able to talk to your commander.
     
  20. Vessboy

    Vessboy Member

    Messages:
    1,519
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    if the the com selects the squads and orders them as a unit. then theres no need for indifidual "annoying" requests. You do know that squad leaders can give the same orders right?
    I say give squad leaders more response ability and let the com stratigize rather then serve the masses.
     

Share This Page