Global vs Proximity voice chat (poll)

[Michael Moist]

I’ve set up a basic poll in order to get some overview on how you think about the voice chat in BAM. Don’t worry, it’s only one question, and no login required.

Link to poll: http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=58e178fce4b0867366514ac5

[Michael Moist]

Global voice chat
Your voice is being sent directly to other players on the server. Basicly what we have today.

Proximity/localized voice chat
Your voice is being transmitted from the location of your in-game character. Meaning you have to stay close to someone in order to have a conversation with them. However, the radio allows you to communicate regardless of distances. Basically how it’s done in Onward.

[Major_Troubles]

The global voice chat is nice for friendly games. For example, you can talk to the person that just killed you.

The team voice chat would be preferable as soon as we get well organised and coordinated team matches. I haven't seen one of those so far though. Btw: Iirc you can already talk to your team only with the radio.

[Michael Moist]

Both options have their own pros and cons, but due to the higher immersion factor I think proximity chat makes the most sense in VR.

@Major_Troubles
Since the radio in BAM has the ability to switch between “team” and “all” you would still be able to talk to people on the other team during matches. The main difference is that you would have to touch the radio to do so.

[Major_Troubles]

Originally posted by Handerre:

Both options have their own pros and cons, but due to the higher immersion factor I think proximity chat makes the most sense in VR.

For immersion yes. The question here is between reality and ease of use. As said before, I think what is best depends on the game mode and play style.

[jiggyjosh12]

i honestly loove proximity that is in other games! I've had tons of fun yelling things outside of doorways or down hallways to help my team but also mess with the other team. It really makes it enjoyable!

[Michael Moist]

Yelling "Watch out! Behind you!" at your teammates doesn't really work with global chat since everybody playing on that server will turn around ;)

[Major_Troubles]

That's why we invented names! :p

Originally posted by Handerre:

Yelling "Watch out! Behind you!" at your teammates doesn't really work with global chat since everybody playing on that server will turn around ;)

That's why we invented names! :p

Yeah, I know, the names are hard to read and the players hard to distinguish. But even with proximity chat, there might be other players in the vicinity, thinking that they were adressed.

Also, with global chat you can see a speaker symbol above whoever is talking. So if a teammate looks at you and you see the speaker symbol when they shout that, it means you should turn around. IF you are currently looking at them and not sideways...

In real life, everybody would wear a headset and would probably be perma-transmitting, making it equal to global (team) chat.

[Patrick König]

It seems that people really would like to see local/proximity chat. I know most games handle it different but how about making it only localized if a person is close to you? This has the advantage of being able to know that a person right beside you said something while still keeping the global chat for all other persons that are not close to you.

Maybe this could be a good compromise for the start and maybe it already would be working well enough. :)

[Major_Troubles]

Originally posted by Patrick König:

I know most games handle it different but how about making it only localized if a person is close to you? This has the advantage of being able to know that a person right beside you said something while still keeping the global chat for all other persons that are not close to you.

How would you distinguish whether what you hear is brought to you by localized chat or global chat? The global chat would have to get some sort of radio noise.

How about making it game mode dependent? Deathmatch can be global chat because there are no teammates anyway.

Or you could let the host choose.

[Michael Moist]

I’m not sure how to execute the transition between localized/global correctly, Patrick. If you do a crossfade between the two you’d probably end up losing the binaural effect, and it would be hard to localize the voices. And simply cutting/switching between the two instantly might end up sounding weird when there’s a lot of moving players.

One way to ease into it could be to have a “always transmit” option on the radio. Also I’m not sure if people actually use the aux channels, but it might be wise to remove them so that you don’t end up with too many options on the radio.

I suggest these radio options:
TEAM* (default), ALL*,
TEAM A.O.**, ALL A.O.**,
MUTE MIC.

*press trigger on the radio to transmit
**always on (always transmit)

[Michael Moist]

Oh! And all outgoing radio transmissions should be deactivated in the loadout room. Just imagine the potential bleeding eardrums if 12 people ended up in the same room with both radio and localized voice turned on ;)

[Atro]

global is way more fun as it allows a psyops mode to the game. and is really way more fun and social allowing players to reteam with people they prefer.

[Atro]

One thing that I found in another game was that it allowed me to see the bullet in flight. It gave me a whole new way to play and is extremely fun. seeing the bullet in flight would be great in BAM.

[Michael Moist]

Thank you for joining the conversation, SelfHandledRogue. But I think you’ve misunderstood the difference between global and localized voice chat.

First off there’s nothing that prevents you from talking to the other team if localized voice chat gets implemented . You can communicate with any player in-game if they’re close to you, regardless of which team they're on. Also since everybody starts off in the same loadout room at the start of each map, you could easily tell your friends which team to choose. And then there’s the radio…

[Rainman]

I like a combination of all the ideas presented so far.

1) Local voice chat when somebody is next to you.
2) Global chat when using the radio.
3) The global radio has a roger-wilko like churp before the person speaks, so you can easily distinguish when it's local chat or global chat.

My question is, would it be possible to integrate discord with the games voice chat? How cool would it be if you could hop in the live game and chat without logging in. That would be pretty unique, if possible.