Raiding and Teamspeak.

[Cynric]

I don't think VOIP is required or necessary. It can help for some stuff. But it's one of those things that's like, if you play without it, you'll never need it, if you played with it, you don't want to play without it. Using voice chat can help with call outs, bad situations, and general communication.


However, in the same sense, if you need a call out to know a mechanic is coming then you probably should pay better attention, if bad situations are happening then people should improve. Voice chat is a crutch, Call outs are a crutch. Do they make the game easier? Of course they do, but you could also just learn the fight to the extent you don't need someone to tell you what to do.

Situation : swiftcast is down. Now do you really need the healer to communicate to you that swiftcast is down? Or did you just not notice the person who's dead has been dead for longer than 10 seconds?

In many ways Voice chat is useful. In many ways it can dampen your raid awareness to the point that you rely on Voice chat and believe you can not succeed without it.

In experienced groups voice chat just becomes casual small talk during raids, with the occasional "oh crap this thing happened".
Socially, typing and voice chat are about the same, though for some people voice chat is much easier and quicker to use than it is to type something out.

I will say it feels more fun to use voice chat while raiding. It's a stronger sense of synergy when you can talk on the fly about things and get responses quickly. However some people aren't able to respond even on voice chat, especially when they are heavily focusing on mechanics or not dying.

[Beckett]

Situation : swiftcast is down. Now do you really need the healer to communicate to you that swiftcast is down? Or did you just not notice the person who's dead has been dead for longer than 10 seconds?

Yes, you really do need to communicate that Swiftcast is down. I've seen it happen way too often that a Summoner and healer will both pop their swiftcast at the same time because they weren't able to communicate properly.

Maybe one of them didn't have Swiftcast available, but it only had a few seconds left before it became available again. There's no way they would be able to type that out, but because of the delay, the other person would think they didn't have it available, and would pop their own Swiftcast. With voice chat they can easily say, "My swiftcast is back up in 10 seconds."

Maybe the Summoner has Swiftcast available but didn't notice the dead person because they were focusing on their rotation. Without voice chat, the healer (not wanting to waste their Swiftcast if they don't have to) would wait a bit for the SMN to raise, notice they weren't, assume they couldn't and try raising themselves. At this point the SMN finally notices the dead person and also tries to raise them, and both the healer and SMN waste their Swiftcast and MP. With voice chat, the healer can quickly call the SMN's attention.

It's certainly possible to raid without voice chat, but it's much, much easier with voice chat. Especially if you need to discuss strategies. A team that's doing everything 100% perfectly doesn't need voice callouts, but if there's a wipe, you're going to want to discuss what happened. This can be very frustrating without voice chat, since typing out responses takes much longer and there's no indication that you're even at the keyboard until you hit Enter. Using voice chat is much more convenient and less frustrating for everyone involved.

[Cynric]

snip.

No you don't have to communicate it's down if everyone is paying attention and you play together enough to know how each other plays. There was a time of raiding and gaming without voice chat. You're not showing at all that it's necessary or required.

As you and I both said it makes things easier. It's easier for a Healer to respond with Swiftcast down, yet even on voice chat I've seen healers agree to raise 1st or raise 2nd, and then both proceed to raise the same person at the same time with swiftcast.

It's easier to be able to know certain situations are happening with voice chat. But it's not a requirement for you to know.

1 person just died. Swiftcast 1 down, another person died fairly soon after swiftcast 2 down. If the summoner had been looking at the party and not tunnel visioning they could realize right away the healers would have to hard raise the third person. If 2 people drop that fast it's hard not to notice. If the Healers double up on raises it's less obvious but if someone has been dead for a period of time or you notice that casting bar on the party list that says Raise, Resurrection, Ascend, it should be obvious they don't have swiftcast or they wouldn't be hardcasting.

Yes voice chat is easier, but things are 100% doable without it. It just makes things easier.*and sometimes more fun

[Destomius]

I bet most people here that act as if voice chat is a crutch haven't even cleared A3S.

[Morbid]

I bet most people here that act as if voice chat is a crutch haven't even cleared A3S.

Man imagine what MMO players did before there was Duty Finders, Party Finders, YouTube guides and TS/Mumble VOIP.

It's like 90% of the people who think voice comm is a necessity never played a true traditional MMO...

/end overblanketing generalization post.

Always funny seeing.. "I bet such-n-such never even cleared *highest content you actually managed* before.. pfft scrubz..

[Ashkendor]

Man imagine what MMO players did before there was Duty Finders, Party Finders, YouTube guides and TS/Mumble VOIP.

It's like 90% of the people who think voice comm is a necessity never played a true traditional MMO...

/end overblanketing generalization post.

I've been gaming online since the dawn of text gaming, which is longer than a lot of our players have been alive.

The fact that we didn't have voice chat back then doesn't make it any less useful now. xD

[Morbid]

I've been gaming online since the dawn of text gaming, which is longer than a lot of our players have been alive.

The fact that we didn't have voice chat back then doesn't make it any less useful now. xD

Usefulness is a yes... necessity is a no.

[Andrea]

Man imagine what MMO players did before there was Duty Finders, Party Finders, YouTube guides and TS/Mumble VOIP.

It's like 90% of the people who think voice comm is a necessity never played a true traditional MMO...

/end overblanketing generalization post.

Always funny seeing.. "I bet such-n-such never even cleared *highest content you actually managed* before.. pfft scrubz..

You're sounding like the old man that always says "back in my day."

On topic voip helps. Some people like using it some people don't. Lets not start labelling people who don't use voip/do use voip.

@Zeonx Of course most people have cleared most stuff. The game is aimed at the casual market. Also with unsynched now in the game there is no skill at all in clearing final coil. If you want to talk about clear numbers talk about Alexander savage. I can say with 100% not "most" have cleared that.