172 replies to this topic

[Jimmy Page]

For years all the puggers screamed about how they need VOIP to be successful in MWO. That teams were OP and that they refuse to try to use Team Speak for coordination. PGI finally delivers......and no one uses it! I hear someone speak every 10 games or so. This was essentially a waste of resources implementing it. Just like 3pv. Opinions?

[sneeking]

Some people screamed ( not to be confused with all the puggers ) im a pugger I did not scream.

[STEF_]

Teamwork is OP.
Puggies even with voip don't work as a team.
But it's not been a waste of resources, imo. It's a usefull tool, and players should really learn and get used to use it.

We only use TS in team drops, better quality, and more fun/stuff.etc.

[Kiiyor]

I hear someone speak most games.

I guess typing is a hard habit to break.

As far as a waste of resources, no. Most assuredly not. I've had some great games, where some brave soul has leapt into VOIP and wrestled their flock of scared, bleating sheep into some form of woolly blob, and has urged them to glorious victory.

It's a slow process, but I'm noticing more and more squeaky nerd voices taking up the mantle of command these days. Give it time.

[Widowmaker1981]

I left it on, and found it useful, until i realised it was adding 40-50 to my ping and taking 10 from my FPS. I switched it off at that point because hitreg > comms in pug matches, since i play group most of the time anyway.

Optimise it and ill use it again.

[SirSlaughter]

People sometimes use voip, but not very often. The quality is really poor compared with Comstar EU/NA TS servers.

[StraferX]

I use it often and attempt to help the team, sometimes they listen and jump in to help while other times not a peep is made and every one goes to random points of the map and its a total loss. I have not noticed any performance hit at all, not even a little bit.

edit: as a side note I have only had two games where some goof bucket acted inappropriately and a short reprimand they were silenced.

Edited by StraferX, 24 March 2015 - 03:14 AM.

[Ozric]

Voip has worked wonders. It only takes one person to speak up for the majority of a PUG team to listen. It is not an assured victory of course, nor should it be, but even a few quick group calls can make the match.

[Egomane]

Jimmy Page, on 24 March 2015 - 02:55 AM, said:

For years all the puggers screamed about how they need VOIP to be successful in MWO.

No we didn't. While the occasional PUG player might have done so, I have mostly seen unit players ask for an ingame VoIP solution.

Jimmy Page, on 24 March 2015 - 02:55 AM, said:

That teams were OP and that they refuse to try to use Team Speak for coordination.

Coordinated teams usually are stronger then an uncoordinated pick up group. But the PUGs didn't complain about the need for VoIP because of that. They instead asked for seperate queues, which they got.

Jimmy Page, on 24 March 2015 - 02:55 AM, said:

PGI finally delivers......and no one uses it! I hear someone speak every 10 games or so. This was essentially a waste of resources implementing it. Just like 3pv. Opinions?

There where many who opposed ingame VoIP. At least as many as there where those who kept arguing for it. And those where just the ones activly participating on the forums, reddit or other means. Most player where simply playing the game and didn't care about it at all either way.

So my opinion: A generalization like yours is just wrong.

Add to it, that it we still have low quality audio on this system and that some player got scared away from it by "bad" users, like some of those who where against it warned about, the fact that not everyone is playing to be competetive or to be always successfull, as well as several other factors that all add up and you get the situation we have now and that was predicted by a lot of us.

Edited by Egomane, 24 March 2015 - 03:14 AM.

[Senor Cataclysmo]

I'm a pugger and I use it as much as possible. It's a great addition to MWO, although I agree it doesn't get used as much as it should.

I'm sure as more people see the difference it can make to coordination it will gradually see more and more use.

Its not a failure because it didnt magically give the pug queue the coordination and teamwork of well rehearsed units who play in the group queue overnight. *nothing* will do that. A more realistic expectation would be for it to gradually raise the baseline levels of communication among those pugs who want to play a better game. And to be honest, I see it doing that.

[Violent Nick]

I advocated VOIP but the quality hasn't been fantastic particularly with Ping issues.. when I found myself having to bite my tongue to avoid getting into arguments with some real pigs, I just stopped talking. No one seems to read the text still anyway so for me, MWO took a dive at that point because I realised the game is populated by some real d!cks. T'is a shame.

[Alistair Winter]

I've been asking for command wheels / Counter Strike-style radio commands since day one. I never wanted VOIP for this game.

I was willing to give this the benefit of the doubt when it was clear PGI wanted to do VOIP before command wheel. The jury is still out, but so far I am inclined to say that the command wheel / radio commands would have been more useful.

YMMV. I expect there's more chatter in North American prime time than European prime time. But I stand by my opinion. Now I just hope we can get the command wheel / radio commands sooner rather than later.

[Quxudica]

Jimmy Page, on 24 March 2015 - 02:55 AM, said:

For years all the puggers screamed about how they need VOIP to be successful in MWO. That teams were OP and that they refuse to try to use Team Speak for coordination. PGI finally delivers......and no one uses it! I hear someone speak every 10 games or so. This was essentially a waste of resources implementing it. Just like 3pv. Opinions?

Voip needed to be part of the game before Open Beta, not years afterward. If it's part of the game from the start then the playerbase can be trained to use it right from the get go - they waited far to long and now most of the player base is conditioned to either ignore communication entirely or don't even know it exists.

I've played many games with voip and had plenty of solo queue players use it, I've had pugs that beat premades. If Voip is a failure then its because PGI dragged their heels introducing it, not because solo players are incapable of using it..

[Elizander]

VIOP is a good addition. Sometimes it even wins games. Other times it's entertaining banter during a round while you're hunting down that last powered down light mech that holds KDR above all else.

Edited by Elizander, 24 March 2015 - 03:24 AM.

[JohnnyWayne]

Jimmy Page, on 24 March 2015 - 02:55 AM, said:

For years all the puggers screamed about how they need VOIP to be successful in MWO. That teams were OP and that they refuse to try to use Team Speak for coordination. PGI finally delivers......and no one uses it! I hear someone speak every 10 games or so. This was essentially a waste of resources implementing it. Just like 3pv. Opinions?

I use it, I have heard lot of others use it.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 24 March 2015 - 03:51 AM.

[sneeking]

Mostly nobody uses it in my bracket and then occasionally someone won't shut up.

[Paigan]

My experience everytime I turn on the ingame TS (btw "VOIP" is NOT the proper term here. VOIP refers to internet telephony, not an ingame voice comm):

There is ALWAYS at least one guy using it so utterly wrong I can't bear it and immediately mute him or turn off the feature completely.
Like screaming in excitement over kills, babbling theatralic nonsense (like at the beginning of the game "We can make it guys! Stay strong, kick ass!" blablabla. Childish children, unbelievable).

Plus the sound quality is really, really bad compared to actual TS.

I also noted that tactical coordination is still done via chat because the really essential information is quite limited (e.g. "b4 lots") and it has some advantages over voice like can be read asynchronously and multiple times, doesn't distract people as much, etc.

90% of TS babbling has NO tactical value but is more like undiscplined wannabe-talk.



My best experience was this weekend, where I wrote in team chat after a few commands someone gave at the beginning of a PUG CW:

"[X] you sound really competent, but I don't understand half of what you say acoustically because of the bad quality and not being a native speaker."

My conclusion:
Implementing the feature with that quality and for that unbearably childish people in the community wasn't worth the time.

Edited by Paigan, 24 March 2015 - 04:10 AM.

[Ace Selin]

Lots of people use it, I play with no sound in many games though, and have for so long that I don't think to use it. If it was implemented from early on I would have likely used it, by now ive figured how to get around without it.

[Dolph Hoskins]

I'm glad they added it.

I speak when:
-I think I have relevant intel for the team
-can call out an easy directive that no one seems to be acting upon but is possible without too much confusion.
-Or there are a couple of other coordinated talkers that I feel like working with.
-Sometimes I just want to play...no talking

Firstly I understand it is a pug match. I don't open my mouth to complain, criticize someones build or mistakes, or try to over complicate things. VOIP nice to have, but you shouldn't expect miracles from it. Most of the time people have a clue what the team's general motion is without speaking anyways. Silence is better than saying a whole lot of nothing.

[Mawai]

I find that folks speak in about 1 or 2 out of every 4 games I have played. If one person says something useful then usually more folks will speak up as well. I have not yet heard anyone abusing VOIP or making a fool of themselves. However, it is under utilized in general.

There is a difference between a group who has agreed to work together as a team and a bunch of random people on the same side whether they have VOIP or not. The folks who agree to work together in advance of the match have already decided that they will follow directions, play together and help their team mates ... folks in a random pug have only committed to playing the game ... and not on any specific terms. This is why VOIP does help a random pug play better but is not the same as a pre-organized group even if that group is playing casually.

Anyway, I think it will be an essential feature going forward if PGI wants to organize tournaments or other inhouse competitions. Teams can be made on the fly or formed in the MWO lobby (feature supposedly in development) and will not need to go outside of the game to organize everyone onto the same VOIP system. Pre-organized teams may still use external VOIP servers but groups that form up in the MWO lobby are likely to find the ingame VOIP much more accessible. In fact, the lobby itself would probably not work well as a method for forming teams without the VOIP feature.

Edited by Mawai, 24 March 2015 - 04:02 AM.