Squad Voice Chat

Suggestion: Made a squad voice chat that allows you to only talk to your squad members (similar to how team voice chat only talks to your team)

Highly organized matches (such as the PUG or Clan scrims) that more fully utilize the teamwork aspects of Empires can get 'noisy' as multiple squad leaders + squad members + comms give out orders/updates. This generally requires using an external voice chat system (Vent or TS) to organize people to squads that can only talk to each other to reduce in-game chatter. It would be extremely helpful if a similar system could be implemented in which squad members could bind a key to just talk to their squad in game.

PROS

• Easier to organize squads in-game
• Reduces unnecessary voice chat
• Encourages squad-based teamwork in public games

CONS

• May not be possible with the source engine
• May be confusing to new players (i.e. increase the learning curve)

 

Mm, I think the problem here is that 'squads' are not really that concrete.

More useful would be a button to talk to everyone near you, because things tend to be relevant to those near you or everyone.

You could combine the two but definitely include nearby chat.

Oh yes and some sort of highlighting to show you who can hear you when you press the button.

 

This. Squads don't really stay together that much, so this would be better. Might be harder/laggier, but better.

 

You mean something like this?
And I fell that this would work best if both were implemented as there are times when one is useful and times when the other is useful.

 

I still think squad chat would be better than local chat. Squads don't usually stick together because they don't intend to act like squads. Rather they are just joining a squad because others say they should or they are trying to farm squad points.

Having a specific squad chat would make working as a squad easier to organize and, hence, more people would join a squad to work together. You don't get that same benefit from local chat and it might be confusing to determine who can and cannot hear you.

 

So we are up to team, squad, local/shout, and com that supersedes everyone.
Sounds good.

 

It has nothing to do with whether they stick together or not, even if they do stick together they are probably working with people who aren't in the squad, and they're in the same area so I should be telling them what I tell my squad.

Forcing people into squads because you think it's better than just working with other people is silly, the important thing is that people work together, not that they follow a particular organisational structure while doing so.

And I did suggest having a highlighting effect when you push the button to let you know who can hear you.

 

I'd prefer different text channels. By splitting voice up a bit, you lose the immediate big picture. If you actively look for your own squad's bits, they're still there. ArmA does both, I think. Well too.

 

Arma has two buttons to switch channel and plenty of time to fiddle with the horrible controls.

Empires should have neither.

As a rule, nothing about operation flashpoint should be aspired towards, it's an FPS with the complexity and controls of a flight simulator, and it plays like it. Nothing in it would work in any other FPS because every other FPS has pacing. The only reason anything in operation flashpoint works is because the game is so bad that you don't need good controls to play it. It doesn't matter if you can't find the button for something because the enemies are retarded, it doesn't matter if you can't move properly because everything takes ten times longer than it should anyway, and it doesn't matter if you can't organise for shit because the enemy probably can't either.

In empires however none of that applies, everything is immediate and has to work smoothly, you can't afford to be fiddling with channels and typing things out half way through capping an area.

 

Do people regularly or effectively work together outside of squads? The only time I see this is when people know each other/are in a clan together. Otherwise non-squad = no teamwork in my experience.

 

Please use the search function in the future to avoid duplicate suggestions.