Voice Chat?

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

We do not plan on offering official support for voicechat. To explain that decision, the idea of talking directly to other players with your own voice and making it a requirement to do so will not necessarily be a good thing for beginners and new players and many will see it as imposing pressure or causing them unnecessary stress.

I am personally a veteran online gamer so I completely understand the importance of voice chat but if we were to make it an officially supported feature then there is a chance that some players would start to demand that others use it just because it is an “official feature”.

Of course, we will not be prohibiting external voice chat via Skype etc, so individual player communities can still sort out their own preferred means of communication!

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https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2013...-realm-reborn/

Another point is also that not everyone can speak english or can understand spoken english.

hey discord, its free. get it.

I know from developers of different games they often don't implement voice chat in games like these because it's even harder to police than text chat. That and it saves resources not having to implement it.

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Originally Posted by Lordgrim

show me and the millions of subscribers where it says on the box that the final fantasy 14 development team said " players must have voice chat to complete any of the content we created"

i'll save you the effort , it's not there, believe it or not there is groups of people who clear all content without using voice chat.

P.S they actually type with their keyboards ( oh the horror i have to use my fingers ??!!! when i even typing on the games forum too, how dare square enix not force the player base to use voice chat)

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No one said players must have voice chat ever??? Still don't know where you are getting this. It was a request for an additional QoL feature. Not a mandatory one.

A Skype App for PS4 would be good, not only for gaming

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Originally Posted by Lordgrim

P.S they actually type with their keyboards ( oh the horror i have to use my fingers ??!!! when i even typing on the games forum too, how dare square enix not force the player base to use voice chat)

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A voice chat for the forum would be interesting ^^

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Originally Posted by DaikiKiyoshi

No one said players must have voice chat ever??? Still don't know where you are getting this. It was a request for an additional QoL feature. Not a mandatory one.

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You see, the problem here is that as soon as there is a voice chat in game, people can and will be all like "Now you have to use it, its the way this game is meant to be played!"
Implementing a voice chat - specially if it would be for example only for duties, as some people here seem to suggest (or even if the voice chat would automatically create chat rooms for each duty) - would be sending the strong message of "You need this to play the game"
And even if no one in your party is pressuring you directly, for a new player this feature could be very "confusing" (lack of a better word right now - what I mean by that is: This might be the first MMO or online game for a lot of people, so they're not used to voice chat etc. and even if they are, they might not be comfortable with it. Having this inbuilt voice chat could easly lead to them being all like "Do... do I have to use it now? Is this what the game expects of me...?")

There is also the fact that not everyone has a microphone. Which is why Discord is perfect because everyone in this day and age has a cell phone. And discord is free.

Voice chat is not good idea if you're with randoms. That's for friends and that. Nothing more. I won't be happy if a unknown guy start yelling at me or talking shit in middle of dungeon. A voice chat will have option to turn off and that, and most people will turn off because don't want to talk with unknown people, potentially a jerk. So in the end, it is a waste of resources and infrastructure (you need more servers or more powerful ones to have voice servers alongside game). Using teamspeak, of discord because is free, it is better. This clients does not consume too much resources an can be installed even on smartphones for those who paly on console and don't have PC near.

Also, the language barrier. You can talk in english, but maybe the person who is hearing you don't understand.

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Originally Posted by DaikiKiyoshi

No one said players must have voice chat ever??? Still don't know where you are getting this. It was a request for an additional QoL feature. Not a mandatory one.

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If it's poor, it'll be a waste of resources.

If it's good, players WILL make it a requirement. I personally am fine in voice chat most of the time (Even though I run my mouth.) However, someone who is new to the game, or more concerned, will be afraid to. And players will throw fits over it, resulting in it being harder for that player for basically no fault of their own here. Until dungeons require communication, voice chat won't appear in game because it'll feel too pressuring for players to join it.

That's actually why on WoW I learned about the voice chat, because despite how crappy it was, people in Deadmines were so stingy about it, that it was the only way I was ever going to see that content (This was before dungeon finder.)

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Originally Posted by CryBloodwing

Except no one would take the time to add each other on discord before starting the dungeon.

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I don't understand why you would need it in dungeons. Unless its the first run on patch day anyone walking in there should know how to face roll the face roll content of a dungeon.

I mean really why would anyone want voice in this game, as mean and salty as the base is and the thin skin of players would see posts right after adding it to remove it because its mean.

Get discord, make a network or join a network of content users and go to town.

No. I can't count how many times I joined people's voice chats on other games only to get harrassed, hit on, and annoyed because I'm a female.

You don't need voice chat in dungeons, all mechanics can be explained in a few sentences of text. If you desperately want to talk to someone, drop your Discord name - it only takes 5 seconds to do so.

Thing about player made "rules" such as "voice chat is now mandatory" is they are very easily defeated by proper enforcement of the ToS. If SE never made the voice chat mandatory (and I doubt they ever would) if you ever got kicked or harassed for not using it in a random duty then you can report that. As for private parties (premades) we already have the right to impose whatever rules we want and indeed people already do post parties to the PF that REQUIRE 3rd party voice chat. I think there is too much fear mongering going on regarding it becoming mandatory.


I also think it's kinda ironic that people are simultaneously saying it would suck so bad that no one would use it and that if it were implemented it would be enforced as a new meta.

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Originally Posted by DaikiKiyoshi

Thing about player made "rules" such as "voice chat is now mandatory" is they are very easily defeated by proper enforcement of the ToS. If SE never made the voice chat mandatory (and I doubt they ever would) if you ever got kicked or harassed for not using it in a random duty then you can report that. As for private parties (premades) we already have the right to impose whatever rules we want and indeed people already do post parties to the PF that REQUIRE 3rd party voice chat. I think there is too much fear mongering going on regarding it becoming mandatory.


I also think it's kinda ironic that people are simultaneously saying it would suck so bad that no one would use it and that if it were implemented it would be enforced as a new meta.

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Kicked for difference in playstyle - or kicked without given a reason. We dont even go so far as having to kick someone - lets just think of the following scenario: Group wipes to any given boss.
Player A: That would have never happend if everyone would be using the voice chat and we called out mechanics!
Player B: But... I dont want to use the voice chat...
Player A: Then is your fault we're not clearing this dungeon!
Player C: Salut! [Continuing in french]

Its not even about being kicked or not - its already about "if we dont clear this its your fault because you werent on voice chat!"
It could be used to outright lie to new players and unsettle them - even if the ToS would say "Participation in voice chat is not mandatory to play this game" - a group can easly say "Look, if the devs thought we could do this without voice chat, they'd never introduce it. You really have to use it, if you want to do this content!"

PF parties with such requirements are different - because you know that they expect you to join their voice chat before you join the party and can then choose if you wnat to do that or not. They also require it most likely for more difficult content - and not for an expert dungeon. So, there is your difference...

Also, again: harrassment within voice chat would be more difficult to track down and turn into "he said, she said" - unless they'd make audiologs which would put even more stress on the severs on the hand and on the other hand might be tricky with privacy-policy.

here in masamune (JP) my FC and the LS's im part of run multiple discord servers and we only ever use voice chat for learning new trials ex and savage raid (and sometimes for farm runs when we run non-standard comps or try a new strat) - once we have the content down and memorised we rarely (or never) use voice chat anymore. for all other content we just type out in regular chat what we want to say because these things don't require as much coordination as top tier content.

granted we're mostly all asian so majority of us are really shy (as compared to westerners who are more open out and about). though we do have some social voice chat channels in our discords and mostly it's the people who transferred from NA/EU who frequent those.

also ingame voice will just be underutilized or not used at all in JP DF, in the nearly 2 years i've played on masamune i've only had about 2 or 3 runs in leveling and expert roulette combined where people chatted beyond the customary よろしく and おつかれ at the end of the instance. everyone just goes about their own business and 97% of the runs go really smooth.

for them to include an ingame voice chat feature the demand has to come from a sizeable chunk of the JP + EU + NA playerbase and that SE would deem discord,teamspeak,mumble,skype,etc. would be inadequate for use ingame communication

@ Vidu: makes sense. I still think it could be a useful tool for success if people could use it maturely but I guess that 'if' might be a little too big. I can't help but be reminded of the whole in game parser debate right now. It seems similar. Both are not needed and have people willing to exploit them to harass others, yet both have incredible potential to help people get better. I guess the overall lack of maturity by less than savory members of the community is what's holding us back in regards to these tools being officially supported.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Its not even about being kicked or not - its already about "if we dont clear this its your fault because you werent on voice chat!"

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Everquest 2 has voice chat.
It also has harder less forgiving mechanics than FFXIV.
Its also free to play. Meaning it has more riffraff.

None of what you described happens over there.

Hell I've never seen a group over there require it. Most use it for socializing, but still explain mechanics in text.

I'm kind of happy there's no voice chat in game because then too many people would demand it for even simple dungeon runs.
I get headaches really easily and I really don't care for voice chatting because people tend to make more noise than provide helpful advice.
I'll stick to talking to people in chat or over a program if we're good enough friends.

I take you have never experienced the utter joy that is Xbox Live. Granted, FFXIV isn't nearly as hype competitive as say, Call of Duty, but I don't doubt for a minute a built in voice feature would lead to... shall we say, less than polite responses.

"Why the fuck are you using aoes?"
"Use fucking cleric. We're not here to carry your dumbass"
"WTF? Are you retarded?!"

I could go on. :p

Typing means people have to stop doing things, which most won't bother with. Voice? Now they can rage freely. And I ensure you, people will.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I take you have never experienced the utter joy that is Xbox Live.

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Apples and Oranges. Do at least like I did and compare it to another MMORPG.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

Apples and Oranges. Do at least like I did and compare it to another MMORPG.

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How is it apples and oranges? The basis of a voice chat system doesn't change based on platform or even genre. People make those types of responses through chat. You honestly don't think it would happen in voice because this is an MMORPG?

WoW has tried several times to add an in-built voice chat system to compete with Vent, Discord and Skype... it's never been as good or user friendly.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

Everquest 2 has voice chat.
It also has harder less forgiving mechanics than FFXIV.
Its also free to play. Meaning it has more riffraff.

None of what you described happens over there.

Hell I've never seen a group over there require it. Most use it for socializing, but still explain mechanics in text.

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Great to hear that voice chat is working in that game! Maybe it could work in this game aswell - I'm not saying its completly impossible or anything. But I understand why the devs dont want to give it a shot and I can agree with that choice and those reasons.
Why invest time in something that
...most of the people who want it, already have?
...can easly be abused and prevents a source of harrassment that isnt as easy to monitor?
...isnt needed to clear content/play the game?

I know that the last one might be a little weak since you guys argue that its ofc not needed but a QoL-improvement.

But thats where I'm unsure - we seem to agree that you dont need voice chat to explain the mechanics and that even in Everquest 2 its used more to socialize. I dont know anything about Everquest 2 ( ...except that it seems it isnt doing so well...? I mean, it wasnt always Free2Play, different language supports seem to have vanished, the last update on their website is from 2015 and if I understand that graphic correct a lot of servers appear to be not even half full - now thats ofc not because theres voice chat in the game xD But the smaller your community the better a voice chat will work - Free2Play doesnt mean more riffraff necessarly - it can also mean: Less People who actually stick around and those who stick around might even be more loyal and attached to the game) but looking at FFXIV socializing during runs wouldnt even be a real option: a dungeon-run normally lasts between 15 and 30 minutes, depending on the dungeon.
15-30 minutes to socialize with a new bunch of strangers... in a game where not even everyone says as much as "Hi" in party chat...

Those who want to use voice chat to socialize have already found their tools to socialize with their friends - and those who dont want that dont have to feel pressured by an ingame tool now.
I'm very fine with that - I can understand why th negative would out-weigh the positive here or is at least considered more important by the devs. Maybe the community in Everquest 2 is, for whatever reason, different enough from FFXIV that this can work over there. From what I've read Everquest 2 was more focussed on players playing together in groups, while FFXIV can easly be a solo-experience. If you want your people to form close knitted groups to achieve something in your game, it makes sense to give them the tools for that (aka voice chat) - if you want to create a game thats more fluff content for the solo-player and is also attractive for people who are completely new to MMOs not having a voice chat seems like an actual good choice to me.

Not many people are comfortable in using voice chat with randoms.
Also like many have mentioned, usually build it voice chat is a waste of money and effort for the dev team, because many players are already using their own programs with friends, FC and LS.

EQII just had an expansion drop in November. It's doing fine, but it and its predecessor are very niche. It didn't have voice back when I played, so it's possible there are old players there that never adopted it. We never needed it.

No thanks, Discord is just fine for me.

Also, really? Complaining about opening a PC application in 2017? My, aren't we a wee bit priveliged? :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

How is it apples and oranges? The basis of a voice chat system doesn't change based on platform or even genre. People make those types of responses through chat. You honestly don't think it would happen in voice because this is an MMORPG?

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You said Xbox live. I gave an example of a MMORPG. While you went on a off topic tangent about a platform that can't even play FFXIV.

I don't think, I personally KNOW it wouldn't happen. I played Everquest 2, Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online, Firefall, and a few others which all had voice chat. As I said people use it to socialize or explain things in a bit more depth if the text isn't understood. Those that leave it off or muted have never been harassed for it. I know in some of them I left it off (due to being in a TS channel normally), and was never told to turn it on.

Hell even the MMOFPS Planetside 2 has voicechat and no harassment behind it. A free-to-play, FPS. So even your little tangent is false. Experience this stuff, don't rely on false reddit posts or heresay.

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Originally Posted by CryBloodwing

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Because it's a waste of resources. (Use Discord.)

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Originally Posted by CryBloodwing

Except no one would take the time to add each other on discord before starting the dungeon.

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People join a Discord room and then the voice chat channel, no big deal.
Plenty of savage parties I were in did this.

Unlike FPS players, MMO players typically aren't comfortable using voice chat with random people. Personally, I'd be fine with having automatic voice channels for all duties so that all you need to do is unmute your mic if you feel like talking, but I imagine it would go unused by many players who have enough anxiety as it is and thus it'd be devtime better spent elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

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You are comparing extremely small MMOs to arguably the second largest on the market. If people type profanities and jump on people for mechanical mistakes, it's silly to think they wouldn't use voice. Furthermore, because you haven't experienced it. Does not mean it hasn't happened. I've experienced decidedly little harassment or even jerk players in XIV, but I certainly won't say it doesn't happen. Yes, people can mute it, but as others have said-- including Yoshi himself. It will gradually be seen as mandatory, especially for new content.

I too do not think it would be worth some $$ to invest resources into in game chat.
So many voice programs out there now and fairly certain SE knows players use them so would not bother.

I just wish PlayStation would implement a discord app.

A discord app and parser would be nice :)

Voice chat built into the game would become a defacto feature that players would be expected to use or be kicked. Of course it would also be about as useful as a chocolate teapot, so many people wouldn't use it, and the unrated nature of voice chat would be a turn off to some players, parents and younger players.

Others have mentioned the irrelevant conversion, extra music and loud argumentative chat about other topics being both annoying an distracting, along with the inevitable vocal diatribes that players will issue forth without even pausing for a moment to think better of it.

If groups want to use voice chat there are already many options for them, but because it exists outside the game it's entirely optional and opt-in only.

Last, I would never use voice chat anyway, hearing my voice speaking for my character would be immersion shattering for me. It's not so much that I role play anything when playing - I really don't, it's just that my voice would be 'wrong' and that would be a problem for me at least.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

You are comparing extremely small MMOs to arguably the second largest on the market. If people type profanities and jump on people for mechanical mistakes, it's silly to think they wouldn't use voice. Furthermore, because you haven't experienced it. Does not mean it hasn't happened. I've experienced decidedly little harassment or even jerk players in XIV, but I certainly won't say it doesn't happen. Yes, people can mute it, but as others have said-- including Yoshi himself. It will gradually be seen as mandatory, especially for new content.

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EQ2 isn't small, and is on its 7th expansion. Planetside 2 likewise isn't small and holds a Guinness world record for most online players in a single battle. WoW also has voice chat that has never in the 5 years its had it, had the problems you described. Which NA population is double that of FFXIV's world population.

You're wrong, and at this point if you're willing to spread false information are damn near lying. Why are you lying to this community? You are knowingly spreading misinformation about a topic you obviously know nothing about. You lack any first hand experience on the topic.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

EQ2 isn't small, and is on its 7th expansion. Planetside 2 likewise isn't small and holds a Guinness world record for most online players in a single battle. WoW also has voice chat that has never in the 5 years its had it, had the problems you described. Which NA population is double that of FFXIV's world population.

You're wrong, and at this point if you're willing to spread false information are damn near lying. Why are you lying to this community? You are knowingly spreading misinformation about a topic you obviously know nothing about. You lack any first hand experience on the topic.

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Small in terms of population. A single battle is not representative of the game nor are those types of battles generally held with complete randoms. You also conveniently didn't mention WoW previously. I'll call into question WoW's voice chat considering the game is known for high levels of toxicity. No other MMO blocks chat in their PvP yet the devs decided to specifically because player feedback apparently showed high volumes of negativity. Would that translate to voice chat? Maybe not, but I don't doubt for an instance it's a concern and one (not the only) reason we won't ever see it implemented in XIV.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

No other MMO blocks chat in their PvP yet the devs decided to specifically because player feedback apparently showed high volumes of negativity.

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Everquest 2 PVP servers have Lucanite and Antonican languages to replace common.
Rift restricted it.
As did STO.
As did Archeage.
And so did DCUO, SWTOR, Wildstar, and a few others.

Is FFXIV your first MMORPG? You seem to be very inexperienced. Or intentionally misleading. Which is it?

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

Everquest 2 PVP servers have Lucanite and Antonican languages to replace common.
Rift restricted it.
As did STO.
As did Archeage.
And so did DCUO, SWTOR, Wildstar, and a few others.

Is FFXIV your first MMORPG? You seem to be very inexperienced. Or intentionally misleading. Which is it?

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Forgive me for jumping in, but aren't most of the games you're mentioning restricting their chat for either free2play and/or for the lower levels only? Chat restriction introduced mainly to protect players against spam from RMT/bot armies? Iirc at least STO, Archage, SWTOR and Wildstar in your list fall under this type of chat restriction. I wouldn't know for sure about the other games you mentioned, as I haven't played them.

I think that's a nuance that needs to be made before you even start putting in an unnessary negative line, insinuating someone's opinion is invalid due to inexperience (incomplete maybe, but never invalid) or intentionally misleading. You would have gotten your point across perfectly fine without that last sentence really. Besides it's ironic given that the phrase could serve as a (relatively mild) example of exactly why SE removed chat from The Feast to begin with. Lines like these inhibit co-operation, instead making people shift their vocal point to defending one's honor and sense of self.

Also, in a way you just gave an example to Bourne's point on why voice chat may not be implemented. They want to avoid negativity as much as possible and control it as best they can when they have to deal with it. Voice chat would require they step up their policing even further and have to inject a lot of money and resources into something that has plenty of free alternatives out there. Sure, it's a bit of a hassle to get people to join Discord servers, but it's a lot less hassle than pumping in lots of money for purchasing and maintaining the servers needed to operate and store all the voice chat as well as all the time spent for (additionally hired) GM's to listen to all the voice chat in order to find the offenses commited. Text chat is just so much more managable in that regard.

WoW added this feature in a long time ago. It's never used. As the others have said, it's a waste of resources compared to its usefulness, which is next to nil given how poor it would be. SE is a business and it wouldn't be a wise decision to spend money/time/manpower to implement this.

Not sure if it's been said, but the original, official statement on it was that they didn't want a situation where players felt they HAD to use voice chat, thus didn't implement it.

Granted, some of the content in game, largely raids and PvP, really do require higher levels of communication between a team (and PvP currently is quite the hot issue with the Feast chat restrictions), but this in itself is a long running debate I'd rather not bring up again here.