Voice Chat Issue

[Ultimate Powa]

Enabled voice chat so I can talk to players occasionally when they are in my vicinity or whatever, and noticed that it's all players in the lobby.

Probably gonna disable it and never enable it again.
It's a shame too because I hate using text chat and I love using voice chat.
But no, I don't want to talk to 27 random players at once when Im just trying to chat with the dude standing next to me.

If there is 5 people in a lobby it's w/e, but if there is 10+ then its a problem.
Often makes me wonder if the developers even play their own game.

[Levianne]

And since when does it work with close proximity like you described? If you're in a full session, then you're talking to the whole session, not just people around you. It was always like this. Did it work differently in Legacy? Did you actually use it like that before, or are you "guessing" because it works like a dream in different games?

Also text chat currently not working on Enhanced, so it's either voice chat, or no chat at all, maybe use the in-game phone to text selected players, dunno, whatever suits you.

Close proximity chat, yea, sure.

[Ultimate Powa]

Originally posted by Levianne:

Did it work differently in Legacy? Did you actually use it like that before, or are you "guessing" because it works like a dream in different games?

No, it apparently had not, and I couldn't remember if that was the case as I haven't played in 5-8 years. I just probably turned it on and then turned it off immediately after noticing I could hear people across the map.
That's what text chat is for or private messages if I want to message someone across the map.

In almost all the online sandbox games I play, virtually all of them, when voice chat is enabled, it's always proximity outside of a party/squad.

Having it lobby wide just discourages people from playing with one another or even using it to begin with, like myself.
And I love voice chat... when it's implemented correctly.

GTA Online's success is in spite of a lobby wide voice chat, not because of it.
Imagine how much better of a game it would be if it had a simple immersive feature like proximity voice chat?
It's not new tech either.

[Ultimate Powa]

For a game that dedicates so much to immersion, such as the way a character sprints, climbs over obstacles, falls down when they trip, etc, I find it funny they are completely anti-immersion with the voice chat and showing other players on the map constantly.

[Levianne]

But that's how it worked for nearly 12 years. R* encourages people to go after each other constantly. Is it nice? Hell no. But it is, what it is. Voice chat being session wide is just like announcing people doing sell missions, is it needed? Nope. But it's the way R* designed the game, as a wide competition. Yes, it has cooperation modes, as well as dedicated competition modes (deathmatches and stuff), but freemode encourages people to go after each other, they don't punish you for destroying someone's cargo, they reward you! So yea, voice chat is session wide because competition is the main focus of this game. It's wrong, but it's the game designer's vision of fun and most of the community adopted it, killing you on sight without much of a reason.

[Ultimate Powa]

Originally posted by Levianne:

But that's how it worked for nearly 12 years.

That doesn't make it any better, makes it worse actually.

Originally posted by Levianne:

R* encourages people to go after each other constantly. Is it nice?

Doesn't matter if its nice, it's an online game and I do enjoy that R* encourages people to go after eachother, I actually want that.
Showing up on the map however... how am I supposed to lose them like I lose the cops?
Oh yeah, switch lobbies...
Why not make it a part of the game to lose players instead of forcing players to find workarounds that break immersion?

Originally posted by Levianne:

But it's the way R* designed the game, as a wide competition. Yes, it has cooperation modes, as well as dedicated competition modes (deathmatches and stuff), but freemode encourages people to go after each other, they don't punish you for destroying someone's cargo, they reward you!

Cool, sounds ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome, and your point?

Originally posted by Levianne:

So yea, voice chat is session wide because competition is the main focus of this game.

Bro, have you ever played any other online sandbox game with voice chat before?
Like Ark Survival Evolved, Sea of Thieves, or Escape from Tarkov?
Could you imagine if those games constantly displayed other players on the map?
(With exception of the Reaper's Mark in SoT).
(R* could potentially do the same with GTA Online where only Clubs/Corps show up.)

Very PvP focused games... with proximity chat.
Not having proximity chat in games where the players are not encouraged to go after eachother makes sense, as you want them to work with one another across the map.
Not having proximity voice chat is antithetical to games where players are encouraged to go after eachother.

Being able to hear my victim scream in agony as I destroy their shipment only to hear it cut to silence after they die is the epitome of pure joy in online PvP games and it's a shame GTA Online doesn't offer that.

Like I said, GTA Online succeeded in spite of not having proximity chat, not because of it.

[Ultimate Powa]

Originally posted by Ultimate Powa:

Like I said, GTA Online succeeded in spite of not having proximity chat, not because of it.

On another note, could you imagine if World of Warcraft only had (world) tradechat available as a means of communicating with your guildies, friends and party members, so that any time you were doing a dungeon, you would have to communicate through the spam of everybody else playing at the same time?

Or if you ran up to some random person and wanted to talk to them, you'd have to sift through everybody elses chat?

[Levianne]

Dude, why are you suddenly barking at me for "explaining" why voice chat is the way it is? I haven't made it that way. Go bark at R*.

What was my point? To tell you, that session wide voice chat has a reason "according to R* and their púolicy", not mine. So why are you asking me, if I've played those other games with voice chat? Yes, I've played Ark, but not using voice chat and seriously I'm not even playing on their official servers with randoms. I'm not even playing with randoms in GTA Online. I don't really care about playing with randoms using any sort of chat. My point wasn't to annoy you with how "I like, or don't like to play MMOs". My point was giving an explanation for why R* decided their voice chat working that way and not other way. If you want to prove your point, go prove it to R*. Simple as that.

[Ultimate Powa]

Originally posted by Levianne:

Dude, why are you suddenly barking at me for "explaining" why voice chat is the way it is? I haven't made it that way.

Barking would be an inaccurate description, I'm simply debating the validity of proximity voice chat over server wide voice chat in a discussion I started about voice chats.
Your perception of my tone of voice is likely skewed due to reading my words with a preset voice already in mind and vice versa. Its why I like voice chat.

Originally posted by Levianne:

Go bark at R*.

Like starting a discussion thread?
Okay, will do.

Originally posted by Levianne:

What was my point? To tell you, that session wide voice chat has a reason "according to R* and their púolicy", not mine.

Alright, where is this policy?

Originally posted by Levianne:

". My point was giving an explanation for why R* decided their voice chat working that way and not other way. If you want to prove your point, go prove it to R*. Simple as that.

Alright, so if you personally were forced to use ingame voice chat as a means of communication in freemode lobbies with 27 other people and your buddy, would you prefer proximity & squad VOIP or lobby wide VOIP?