Separate Voice Channel for Squad

Bad idea. It's hard enough to get a request for a ref to the comm now without having to convince somebody else to relay it for you, and it's hard enough for the comm to get anyone to listen to them without making them go through squad leaders (who nobody listens to.) There are often things I need to tell a comm right now. If I see someone about to 9-mine my comm, your system would leave me unable to warn them; if I see a group of heavies headed for our base, under your system, if I'm not a squad leader, I can't tell the rest of my team directly.

Oh, and what if squad leaders don't have voice chat? That would leave everyone in their squad unable to communciate easily with the comm. Suggesting that only people with voice chat should be squad leaders is an even worse idea (which is quite a feat); there's no real system to appoint or elect squad leaders at the moment, and for all intents and purposes the person who ends up leading a squad can be random (if someone quits, say.)

What if a squad leader goes AFK, even for an instant? What if they're distracted and can't immediately relay important information?

Encouraging teamwork requires more than things like this or the incentives the game uses now. I think Empires only really has one thing that works at making people use more teamwork than they would otherwise: APCs. An APC can pull together a group of people in an instant and encourage them to all work together on the same goal for a while... Any suggestions aimed at improving teamwork ought to be based around the basic APC mechanic of movable spawns that need to be defended.

I also have a strong feeling that a more 'ad-hoc' system of squads would be much, much better if you want people to actually pay attention to them... when you get down to it, sometimes an Engineer or Grenadier or whatever is needed on the other side of the map, so I spawn there as one. If I didn't because I wanted to stick with my squad... it would actually hurt my team. I'm almost tempted to say that the way it should work is 'squad = spawn'; if you spawn at a particular point or APC, you're a member of that spawnpoint's squad.

In other words, instead of telling people to assemble arbitrary squads and then trying to tempt / punish them into sticking with them all the time, why not simply recognize the ad-hoc groups that players form out of where they spawn on the battlefield, and try to gently encourage players to operate as part of those?

This wouldn't be perfect (if an APC or barracks gets destroyed, or if my squad moves closer to a different spawnpoint than their original one, everyone will change squads) but it would, I think, end up mirroring the actual way players group themselves much better than the current system.

I'm not sure it would work in Empires, though... it might really be an idea for a different game. It would be interesting to see, at least. It would require a game with very large maps where you tend to have a lot of barracks and parts of the team operating in different areas... sometimes Empires is like this, but sometimes you just have everyone spawning at the same point. It wouldn't work as well with a central spawn where people then go in different directions... but it would work very well when you have, say, two seperate barracks, one to attack each enemy flank.

...as for the original suggestion, it might be good, and I can't see any reason not to have it... but I doubt it will see much use. The truth is that squads aren't generally used much and don't generally stick together, so players don't have much to say to just their squad.

 

What about this:

aiming at a player that is in another squad and pressing F brings up the F menu. The "S" option of the F menu is "join squad"

I wish that we could remove the free skill at the start of the game from requiring being part of a squad. it's just silly. It discorages people kicking players on their other side of the map out of their squad to accomadate nearby players.

I'd like to see players switching squads several times a match, but people won't because of it's ties to free skill.

 

Yes remove free skill and it all falls into place. With out free skill. people who want to lead a squad will creat one. and people willing to follow a squad leader will join one. squad leaders shouldn't be voted, they should rise up. I'll lead a squad, follow the green star boys!

"Command golf squad requests a ref in b3"
"Command golf squad requests ml turrest in e6"
"Command Golf squad deserves medals for loading up in a jeep and taking down 3 medium tanks through supiorior squad cooperation!"

I'm soo proud of golf... they follow orders so well...(sniff)

 

This is codable, but do we want to have it? Have You ever missed this feature while using a cell phone or walkie-talkie? Aircrafts are waiting, remember that...

Vessboy:
Aquillion is right and I add this: If You fail at commanding because players talk to You and You need to handle their requests and You get confused or distracted - leave the CV!

Please do not change topic to removing the free skill.

Louder commander voice is a bad idea, it all depends on players and how far are their mics from their mouths. Panning stereo is a really good idea (but we don't need to pan 100%, 50% or 60% would do).

 

i think it is a good idea. it has been uterlised in other games and works very well.

 

We have at least 3 implementation ideas in this topic. Which one "is good"?

 

Well, I think everyone probably knows what my idea of which one is good is - I say the one I proposed, heh. :-)

I'd like to see some dev's opinions on this idea to see what they think though.

 

the simplest is best. Two seperait buttons for two seperaite voice types.

 

I can see a problem with two buttons, too, although it's not quite as major: People are going to get confused and reply on the wrong channel. Yes, something could be displayed showing whether it was team or global, but for a brief voice message the current name-indicator often flashes by too fast to see, especially if you're paying attention to something else.

That would probably have to be changed for this to work.

 

The solution is to make the pan effect AND make a radio-click ("tick" from Ventrillo, DeadlyDad mentioned it in this topic) on the right ear, when You press the right channel talk button, and the left ear click, when You press the left channel talk button. Then before You start talking, You are ensured on which channel You will speak.

 

hate to bump and old thread, but I searched for this before suggesting.. and here it is. To fix confusion about the voice coming from which channel, simply position the voice indicator elsewhere (the left? Perhaps show an icon on the squad menu for when a squad member is speaking?)

 

I would really like to see a more intelligent method of communication in Empires, I would be a lot more verbose if what I would say was more likely to be applicable to those that hear it.

A HL2 mod called Resistance and Liberation does some interesting stuff with HL2's voice communication, all voice communications are only hearable by people less than 8m away from you.

I am not sure how they do that, but if it is possible to make voice communications only hearable to certain people, it might be possible to have a "talk to squad" key.

Probably the best method of distinguishing what type of voice communication you are hearing is (from squad, from commander, from anyone, etc) would be prepending and/or appending a chime to the communication.