VoIP do we need it?

MoneylooJr

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Aug 12, 2020
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No one has ever heard of commo rose, or voice emotes? "ATTACK,'" "SURRENDER" "MEDIC" " I give up, STOP SHOOTING" etc this would eliminate the need for voip :) You quickly bring up the menu, and your robot says it, this also doesn't break immersion.
Well, beyond the fact the robots make weird machine noises instead of speaking, are you really sure that would work in a game like starbase? This whole game is designed around dynamic gameplay, a set of cookie cutter voice emotes could never match every scenario. That's not even mentioning the fact half the time you'll be in the middle of piloting a ship. It's hard to scroll through a menu while you're dodging enemy fire and piloting a fighter at the same time.
And do we really want to hear all of the annoying brats yelling at people in this game? Just give it a rest please, voip is overrated.
Just make muting people easy. Letting a few bad apples ruin the experience for the rest of the community doesn't make sense.
 

Venombrew

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in Sea of Thieves they gave us megaphones so we can yell out in direction much much further than normal voice chat. This way people can yell "stop or you be fired on", or even "are you peaceful?" its a system that game has had going on 2 years now i do believe, so its simple system if they put it in the game.
 
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Well, beyond the fact the robots make weird machine noises instead of speaking, are you really sure that would work in a game like starbase? This whole game is designed around dynamic gameplay, a set of cookie cutter voice emotes could never match every scenario. That's not even mentioning the fact half the time you'll be in the middle of piloting a ship. It's hard to scroll through a menu while you're dodging enemy fire and piloting a fighter at the same time.

Just make muting people easy. Letting a few bad apples ruin the experience for the rest of the community doesn't make sense.
or just add some kind of in game voice commands our character talks and it doesn't ruin the experience for anyone No point adding voip just to add mute :p
 

Venombrew

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we just need a in game voice chat with directional chat. many games already do it, Sea of Thieves not only do it, but created megaphones to extend out your voice in a direction you are facing. Its very important in Sea of Thieves, because well your playing against other Pirates and its easier to talk than text a situation. thats super easy and super cheap to implement. I hate to say steal Sea of Thieves voice chat idea, but its pretty good since you can basically yell further out from your boat to another player, while at same time being able to talk within close proximity of your crew and not have anyone hear what your saying if they are not close enough. If you play the game, you will at times see a guy on his boat really far from you, can't hear the guy unless he uses his megaphone to carry his directional voice out further. Good tool when seeing if another boat of players could be friendly or have something worth trading over. Starbase can easily do the same with ship speakers to warn or at very least get another ships attention more directly to engange in a coversation at a distance. Since every game nowadays is coming out with a in voice chat system i wouldn't worry to much.
 
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MoneylooJr

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or just add some kind of in game voice commands our character talks and it doesn't ruin the experience for anyone No point adding voip just to add mute :p
That's kind of a weird thought process. With that logic, there's no point adding pvp just to add safe zones, no point adding the ship designer just to add ship shops, no point adding space just to add stations, etc. And again, the characters make weird robot sounds and the game is too dynamic to have enough voice lines for every situation while also being easy enough to use mid dogfight
 
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In my opinion VOIP support is a complicated subject, here is why:

VOIP is a great system in the sense that it allows people easy communication between each other, it's great, however there is one massive problem!

Give immature players the ability to talk and you will see a lot of bad and toxic behavior that you simply can not moderate.
Sure, you could report and get toxic players muted however that wouldn't solve the issue, just add more work to the staff team.
I can use Garry's mod / rust / CS:GO as an example, All these games have VOIP and all of them have issues with toxicity that simply is not moderated.

CS:GO Mitigated this issue by only allowing people to talk with only their team on competitive, where as before they could talk to the enemy team after the end of each round, making the winning team taunt the losing team and the losing team swearing at the winning team.
So should starbase do the same ?
Well.... I mean we have discord.

Garry's mod and Rust on the other hand..... Oh boy... Just join a dark rp server or any rust server and you will quite quickly understand how VOIP is used in games where you can impact other players by taking or destroying everything or even a tiny bit of what they grinded for.

I am not saying that VOIP is bad, however it has it's issues and games with VOIP usually are alot more toxic, yes there are compromises and you can minimize the toxicity with the way you design the voip system however the keyword here is minimize, there will always be some form of spam/toxicity with VOIP.
 

ChaosRifle

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Aug 11, 2020
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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.
 
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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 easily, and the game has 81 voice lines that can be contextually or manually triggered, plus alternate lines so consecutive uses don't get stale. Memorizing something like the location of 'hey, want to work together?' is very easy with the wheel system, while you don't 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.
As mentioned in a previous post I made in this thread: not everyone will want to play with mouse and keyboard though. I intend on using a HOTAS, since any kind of flying game just feels unplayable to me with mouse/keyboard. And I don't like having to let go of my stick or throttle.

Now, I use (also as mentioned before) an X56. It has roundabout 190 buttons and switches to bind, if you include the mode switch so you can effectively bind every button to three separate things. Not everyone playing with a HOTAS or Flightstick or gamepad will have this amount of buttons available to them.

Also, this is a space game, with full 6 axis movement. You already need more input options if you want to make full use of the possibilities.

All in all, this may work if you're playing with a mouse and keyboard, but I don't think it would work particularly well in a game like this. I still would greatly prefer having Vo-IP.
 

Venombrew

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Voice is needed in a game like this, someone annoying you mute them, someone being racist, mute them than report. Frozenbyte is a pretty good size company with many titles, im sure they already have those areas well grounded by now. And like many games if you don't want to hear people or talk, turn it off. Every game has a on/off for voice chat. Here is the other thing, a stranger on the internet called you a nub or use a slur, who gives a shit? its a stranger on the internet that means absolutely dick to you or at least should when it comes to their personal opinions over you. If you really care to the point that it bothers you so much you can't quit thinking about it, then you sir have bigger problems. Cause guess what people will disagree with you, and random people will dislike you for no reason. Im only stating this because i had seen several posts where their whole reason against a voice chat system is basically, "mean speech".

As for the reasons, it is going to be highly needed is quite simple if you haven't figured it out yet. Very fast gun and melee combat, much same of Call of Duty or most shooting games. The highspeed and very fast ship battles, i recommend watching the ship combat videos. These are not going to be moments where you want to type out commands, or search emotes to explain that the left 3rd back cannon is damaged and it needs repairs, or an engine or anything. you will never be able to type that faster than you can say it and in these battles seconds do count drastically.

Another important thing is, it helps spread community game play with lower risk of letting toxic players into your personal chat servers such as Discord. With in game voice you can meet up with a random player or more, go out and do a gun battle or anything and still talk to them while getting a feel if its okay to invite them into your private servers. And anyone who has ever played with someone new to the gear or even their team can vouch for the fact it is much easier to vocally tell someone something instead of typing out paragraphs of information.

For starbase, being able to hear the tone of a person's voice does mean a lot. You can hear their excitement for good or bad, a new person wandering by wanting to rob or kill you, may sound a little more excited, impatient or even nervous. People who are usually not upto no good or just out screwing around, usually more calm, its the over excited ones that make me nervous. This is something you can't get from text.

There are tons of cool little features about the use of voice chat. Rust players and Ark players will hear players talking while their exploring, letting him know there are possible hostiles near by. The rate of information from one person or a group of people to others is way faster and at times information is even easier to explain. Keep that in mind for Starbase, lots of Yolo Tech guys, much easier to vocally explain something. When dealing with customer support i always go for the voice chat option when available because its quicker and easier, same with games when trying to communicate with others.

I feel like to many positive reasons to have it and not wanting to mute toxic players isn't a big enough excuse to not have it, specially when the option to shut it off or keep it on is always available.
 
Joined
Jul 18, 2020
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In my opinion VOIP support is a complicated subject, here is why:

VOIP is a great system in the sense that it allows people easy communication between each other, it's great, however there is one massive problem!

Give immature players the ability to talk and you will see a lot of bad and toxic behavior that you simply can not moderate.
Sure, you could report and get toxic players muted however that wouldn't solve the issue, just add more work to the staff team.
I can use Garry's mod / rust / CS:GO as an example, All these games have VOIP and all of them have issues with toxicity that simply is not moderated.

CS:GO Mitigated this issue by only allowing people to talk with only their team on competitive, where as before they could talk to the enemy team after the end of each round, making the winning team taunt the losing team and the losing team swearing at the winning team.
So should starbase do the same ?
Well.... I mean we have discord.

Garry's mod and Rust on the other hand..... Oh boy... Just join a dark rp server or any rust server and you will quite quickly understand how VOIP is used in games where you can impact other players by taking or destroying everything or even a tiny bit of what they grinded for.

I am not saying that VOIP is bad, however it has it's issues and games with VOIP usually are alot more toxic, yes there are compromises and you can minimize the toxicity with the way you design the voip system however the keyword here is minimize, there will always be some form of spam/toxicity with VOIP.
there is a mute button?
 
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May 8, 2020
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Perhaps a voip system with multiple channels, similar to how the text chat currently works, maybe even be able to speak in multiple channels at a time. You could "join a channel" with a hotkey. Have proximity, group, custom company channels, and have a way to listen to a channel without speaking in it so you can be talking to your group and still hear local chat.
 

BadNation

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May 15, 2020
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Something I think we all need to band together with and the ball roll is voip. I personally think we need voip. No one wants to text role play in 2019. It will make it way easier for content creators to well you know creat content. What are your thoughts. Please be constructive.


- Skylord
Voice chat would be a very nice feature to have, epically dealing with a tense situation where someone could mistake you for someone else etc.
 

Kmank

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What if everyone started muted and you had to unmute them individually? I think that would solve a lot of the VOIP concerns.
 
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What if everyone started muted and you had to unmute them individually? I think that would solve a lot of the VOIP concerns.
unfortunately I don't think so. If I was for example boarding a ship, I can't really order the crew to surrender their cargo or get killed quickly if we have to unmute each other first.
 

CalenLoki

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unfortunately I don't think so. If I was for example boarding a ship, I can't really order the crew to surrender their cargo or get killed quickly if we have to unmute each other first.
It could auto-unmute anyone outside safe zones. Only there you need to react so quickly and can deal with music spammers in an appropriate way.
 

Venombrew

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you do like most games that support voip in their open worlds. there is a distance from you to others where the sound will become active and inactive, meaning the closer you are to someone you can hear them talk, further away you can't. this technology already exists in games with high populations. you dont hear the entire city talk only those within close range of you, and if its to noisy you turn down the volume for proximity chat. why we also have whispers, private messages, text region and general chats. being in a giant populated server doesn't mean your gonna see everyone, you limited to like 100-200 people around you, meaning you will only phase with lets say 200 people at a time while in mega cities. those 100s if not a thousand people that could be there, wont see or hear you, only a percent of the population. now out of the 200, how many of them have mics? and how many of them are even using it? so as you walk through town its not going to be as noisy as you think, and if it is, you can turn down the proximity volume. and if you played enough games with VOIP, then you will also know that average person doesn't jump automatically to speak talk, most of the times its in text chat, a lot of people are shy even with online voice.

also in a game like this, depending on what kind of role you plan on playing(thief, pirate, smuggler, or honest worker), you may not want to turn off voice chat in the chance of someone talking about something juicy. you can't read guild texts if your not in that guild, you can't read private messages, but you can also ease drop on conversation that 2 or more people may not think anyone else is listening in on. could find out some info that might make you a pay day, or hear about something that may keep you from getting pirated, WHO KNOWS!
 
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I think that performance comes first, the game already has problems with large amounts of people and ships I think it would only be worth it if they can fix that.
 
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