Local Voice Communications
h2o.ava
Join Date: 2010-06-06 Member: 71972Members
Join Date: 2010-06-06 Member: 71972Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Consolitdated, expanded, and rationalized.</div>Foreword:
apparently this has been suggested before, however in those threads people kept assuming that this suggestion would remove global chat. instead this suggestion adds a completely new layer to communications, which someone could use or not.
Current implimentation:
Primary, "Global", everyone on your team receives (just like in NS1).
New addition:
Secondary, "Local", everyone within a certain vicinity receives (you and two others are entering cargo, preparing to head into fusion, first man goes in and uses "local" voice comm to tell his battle buddies where the aliens are. the marines running to sat comm don't need to know that a lerk is in the vent towards waste, especially since the comm is currently telling them to wait for a phase gate.)
Third, "Assignable" (you can choose various channels to join and only those on the channel can hear. could be very beneficial for competitions where high levels of teamwork are employed.)
Prevention of abuse:
Perhaps the commander would be able to hear all channels, at his/her discretion.
Ease of use:
Most mice now have mouse4 and mouse5 thumb buttons, making one for local voice and one for global voice, thus access to both voice comms is very simple.
Personal experience:
I use voice comms a lot, for a lot of small things, like calling out enemy positions, however it does clog up the voice comms. I recognize that everyone does not need to know that information, especially when I don't be exact (lerk in left vent, instead of lerk in vent near fusion towards waste).
apparently this has been suggested before, however in those threads people kept assuming that this suggestion would remove global chat. instead this suggestion adds a completely new layer to communications, which someone could use or not.
Current implimentation:
Primary, "Global", everyone on your team receives (just like in NS1).
New addition:
Secondary, "Local", everyone within a certain vicinity receives (you and two others are entering cargo, preparing to head into fusion, first man goes in and uses "local" voice comm to tell his battle buddies where the aliens are. the marines running to sat comm don't need to know that a lerk is in the vent towards waste, especially since the comm is currently telling them to wait for a phase gate.)
Third, "Assignable" (you can choose various channels to join and only those on the channel can hear. could be very beneficial for competitions where high levels of teamwork are employed.)
Prevention of abuse:
Perhaps the commander would be able to hear all channels, at his/her discretion.
Ease of use:
Most mice now have mouse4 and mouse5 thumb buttons, making one for local voice and one for global voice, thus access to both voice comms is very simple.
Personal experience:
I use voice comms a lot, for a lot of small things, like calling out enemy positions, however it does clog up the voice comms. I recognize that everyone does not need to know that information, especially when I don't be exact (lerk in left vent, instead of lerk in vent near fusion towards waste).
Comments
- The local voice should have some distinct recognizition method so that you don't have to guess whether the chat was global or local. Maybe a quick static sound before the message or so.
- The local might have it's uses for some kind of 3D positional sound.
- The commander hovering over a group of marines should be part of the local channel. I could definitely use an ability to yell quick intructions to a couple of marines.
Such system would benefit at least my public gaming immensely. Right now there is ridiculous amount of things I could at least try to do better if HLVoice wasn't such a mess, especially on bigger public games.
Things that go wrong with HLVoice:
- It mutes the background as the default.
- The configuration options aren't too great. For example some of my mics aren't loud enough even while maxed.
- You have absolutely no idea whether the target actually hears you. Even if you're using voice_loopback to make sure your message is transmitted to the game, you still can't tell whether you're muted or whether the rest of the players have voice_enable 1 at all.
- Alt-tabbing usually leaves your mic on due to the alt-hotkey. So, you're having to mute people because they alt tab and aren't aware that their mic is disturbing the game.
- One mute button for everything. If I want to mute someone's mic, I can't see his text chat either. For example I could mute people using HL Sound Selector as they spam it between the rounds, but at that point I'm also missing their somewhat useful teamchat during the game.
Main channel - talk or listen to everyone on your team.
Comm channel - dedicated channel to/from commander.
Channel 1 to 5 - for specifically assigned teams.
Local channel - for the local area, ie. talking to the person besides you.
Public channel - talk or listen to everyone, including the opposing team.
You can select which channel to broadcast or listen to, so you can tune out the main channel and just listen to your squad, use the local channel for communication when your squad meets another squad, and communicate directly to the commander without having to disturb the rest. Also a great feature would be being able to block out a specific person, so you won't hear some noob raging about how he was killed or boasting how pro he is, etc.
I think the best way to implement this would be a pop up menu where you can check boxes on what you want to listen to and have two or more bindable broadcast buttons, where you can select which channels you are broadcasting on.
with a "talk-to-commander-only" channel the other teammates wont even notice how busy the commander may be at this point.
If used properly it would be a good step in providing a good base for teamwork....still the problem is to make the overview clear
(who is talking to who/squad...who the hell is listening me?)
there should be a little button showing everyone, who the commander is talking to in detail(if global,all team,a squad,a special marine etc.)
this may work perfectly with the notification where the commander view is at the moment (still a little wish for myself,want to keep an eye on the commander and momentum of battle-"where the party is at")
( Commanders view : Waste Hive
Talking to : Squad 1 (5/5 people) )
btw. cant get worse as hlvoice :)
<!--QuoteBegin-"h2o.ava"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("h2o.ava")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Secondary, "Local", everyone within a certain vicinity receives (you and two others are entering cargo, preparing to head into fusion, first man goes in and uses "local" voice comm to tell his battle buddies where the aliens are. the marines running to sat comm don't need to know that a lerk is in the vent towards waste, especially since the comm is currently telling them to wait for a phase gate.)
Third, "Assignable" (you can choose various channels to join and only those on the channel can hear. could be very beneficial for competitions where high levels of teamwork are employed.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This perhaps sounds like a great idea (Less useless information!) except when you think about it, that information isn't useless at all. Knowing that there is a lerk in Fusion is just as important to those in Sat. Comm. then to those actually in Fusion. Its one less player the marines in Sat. Comm. have to worry about. If a Lerk has been confirmed in another part of the map and the marines in Sat. Comm. have just killed the only other players on the Alien team then they can not worry as much about ambushes and just build the needed structures (PG, etc.) Furthermore, they will have a better idea of the attack vector of the last Alien alive, should that Alien choose to rush Sat. Comm. Knowing as much information about the battlefield is the key to victory, whether it directly pertains to you, or not.
Sure, the Commander could relay local chat from one place to another, but doesn't he have more important things to do?
Also, Assignable chat (i.e. Chat Rooms, amirite?) only serve to clog up and confuse the Internet Tubes.
<!--QuoteBegin-"h2o.ava"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("h2o.ava")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Most mice now have mouse4 and mouse5 thumb buttons, making one for local voice and one for global voice, thus access to both voice comms is very simple.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know this is an example of possible easy to use configs, but I for one disable all other mouse buttons other than Mouse 1, Mouse 2 and Mouse 3. Mouse 4+ are usually clicked by accident, especially in a firefight and that just messes things up. Am I the only one?
The bottom line is that even though Global Chat is still put in place for people to use, there is no guarantee that a given squad will use it (and those to say the entire squad will use it - having a player converse with someone else that you can't hear would just be annoying). The important need for global communication and information sharing in a game like NS will be very important I think.
I do think there is some merit in having a Comm. Only switch, where he can choose which squads he's talking to though.
There's definitely place for both chats. I don't want to be yelling "1-2-3-GO!" to the whole team every time I want to rush something with 2 skulks on a 16 player team. As a marine I can yell something like "Pick the gorge!", "Fall back!" or "Cover me with the LMGs!" with people actually realizing it's meant for them when it's coming from a clearly recognizable local voice. I can still inform the crucial stuff on global team chat right after if it's necessary for the team.
Even in extremely controlled clan environment it's good to communicate whenever you're not completely sure about the right move. On publics you don't know most of your teammates so well, so you should be communicating double the more inside your squad.
At least for me public games are often extremely frustrating because I exactly don't have any method of communicating constantly with less experienced fellow teammates so that they understand I'm talking to them and so that I don't completely flood the whole team voicechat. Since there's no communication, less experienced marines become serious liability and ramboing feels double the tempting. I don't know if the majority of more experienced players used the voice chat to guide even if there was an option for it, but right now the clunky HLVoice is killing the whole possibility of it. Thus, the skill gap between the players stays huge and there's very little interaction between the different skill layers on the scene.
Id prefer voice priorities for comm and the possible squad leaders though.
If there are 5 different channels... The admins would have to monitor 10 voice channels and 2 text chat channels for problems. That is just too much for an admin to deal with.
Not everyone has or uses a mic. Let alone a 4+ button mouse. But every server has its case of trouble makers from time to time.
Global chat is mute the spammers, mute the people that have nothing game worthy of saying, then play on and talk over them.
Seconday/Local channels could be something you could add as a mod to NS2. Look into it. As of now I believe it will just be global chat.
Say you and your good friend play a lot together, you could talk about his new child or something while playing without disturbing the team.
Servers become communities with regulars always playing together.
Bringing in the ability to socialize without disrupting the game will increase the enjoyment of the game, the friendships in the game, and will bring people back to the game more often.
I know this from experience, I play Counter Strike: Source and always go to the same server because peeps know me there and we talk on the mic. it's too bad there's only global comms there, but we haven't been scolded yet for socializing over the mic; it's a friendly server. However, on another server it's greatly frowned upon because it's a Tactical server.
Locals voice comms would help eliminate this problem and allow for more enjoyment for the more social players.