game is too dynamic to have enough voice lines for every situation while also being easy enough to use mid dogfight
I want to drive home the point that if the system in place is decent, this is not an issue at all. My understanding is that for friend based communication FrozenByte intends you use your own communications.
[citation needed]
Personally, as someone with an extremely aggressive playstyle in Escape from Tarkov, I can hit my voicelines flawlessly while shooting an opponent where eighths of seconds are the difference between doubling money or loosing everything. I got comfortable with their voice lines system in under a week of owning the game. I have fixed bindings for my most commonly used in combat on my F-keys, and use up to F6 in active combat. (actively strafing, aiming, firing and receiving fire, often all at the same time, otherwise its not 'active combat', an example of this is taking cover to reload or medicate for a half second) Taunt, affirmative, negative, cease fire, good job, bad job(sometimes 'say again' instead), after that outside of active combat(taking cover) I use reloading, need medication, I'm hurt,and other misc ones. Less critical timing can be memorized in the wheel selector pretty easilly, and the game has 81 voice lines that can be contextually or manually triggered, plus alternate lines so consecutive uses dont get stale. Memorizing something like the location of 'hey, want to work together?' is very easy with the wheel system, while you
dont need to know exacts, knowing 'teamwork' category is loosely bottom left of the wheel, and in its list somewhere near the bottom is asking to work together, it takes a second or less to get the line out when done the 'slow' way without knowing its exact location, just having used it before. This number goes up to about four seconds if you only know the category, and nothing about where the line is in the list.
To recap, a pure action all combat all the time game does no-voip so well I actively taunt and talk with enemies as we fight, or cooperate with random strangers regularly.
When implemented
correctly non-voip systems are a breeze to use, you just need a decent system and to actually try using them. You would be suprised how fast it becomes second nature to hold basic conversations with the system in Escape from Tarkov, while under stress.
At the core an immediate response communication system only needs cease fire, affirmative, negative, I need assistance, with basic cooperation commands navigable if you want them, and a single keystroke to exit the menu or what other system you chose for it, in the event things went very wrong very unexpectedly.
You quickly bring up the menu, and your robot says it, this also doesn't break immersion.
