Raiding and Teamspeak.

[Reinha]

Here's what I don't get. If the group requires or benefits from the raid leader's vocal call-outs so much, then the raid leader must have information that the other group members don't have. Otherwise things wouldn't need to be called out, right? However, the static leader isn't any more experienced with the instance unless they go practice with another group when content is out. This isn't a common practice I assume.

So essentially someone with equal experience is calling out things that everyone has seen in the videos and read about beforehand. What's the point? Coordinating cooldowns can be done with 2 macros: "Swiftcast on cooldown <se.#>" and "Stunned/interrupted <se.#>". You can also macro a message to some support/emergency skills. Coordinating positions should be done beforehand because they are mechanic related and mechanics are known beforehand. I can't think of anything that a good player would need called out in voice chat specifically.

My experience with it was that people chatted about random things and play bad music, strats which could have been compressed to a single macro were told over a longer time period than it took me to read a guide, the raid leader would either call out things I already knew or bark at people depending on her mood, kids would scream in the background and there's always one mouth-breather or keyboard-basher who doesn't use push-to-talk. Not to mention the drama of some hearing the voice of a real girl and falling in love... or even worse the people who take flirting too far mid raid. <_< And if a raid team enforces voice comm it's a choice between not raiding and putting up with mandatory chit chat for 2 hours when you're supposed to be unwinding from the day. Teamspeak can be fun too, as long as it's moderated, the people are decent and it's not mandatory for raiding or for knowing what the guild is up to.

I read about an all-deaf guild in WoW (2013) who tackled some of the hardest content in the game at that time, so it's possible to play at a pretty high level without voice communication for sure. TS is fun for socializing and useful for the crowd capable of making the strategy videos before any have been released. Otherwise I wouldn't say it's required.

[Cynric]

snip.

From what I've seen and heard, JP players do not consider the content difficult enough to require vocal interaction. However, the world first players did indeed use voice chat because being able to communicate things on the fly during progression helps a lot and takes away the time it would take to wipe and then go over things.


Voice chat is a double edged sword. You're right in one way, it does help players who tunnel vision, don't pay full attention, or are not as great, be better players.

However a team is not the individual. It's the sum of all its parts. If 6 poor players on voice chat with 1 or 2 doing call outs can make a great team because of voice chat, then is that not a good thing?

I'm a big devils advocate in this thread . You could feasibly raid 7 days a week and have no interaction with your static members except raids, hardly know anything about them, and learn and clear fights together just fine.

Friendship does not necessarily mean teamwork. However if you're trying to do every single possible thing you can to succeed, Voice chat, DPS meters,guides, anything you can find to help your team, if everyone is capable and willing to do it. They probably will try.

Voice chat doesn't make a bad player , it doesn't make a good player. It's just a tool for communication that happens to have pros and cons, It shouldn't be as required as it is by the community. But that's a problem with the community not the tool. That doesn't change that it's still a good tool.

[Ashkendor]

Here is the deal with VOIP. Some of it may have been covered already. But here it is.

A lot of times (even in raids) you hear a lot of chatter that you really don't want to hear. I don't mean commands or directions. But there's always that one, two, or three people who feel like everyone wants to hear about their day, what they're thinking, problems with the spouse etc. No, I do not want to hear about that. If VOIP consisted only of raid leader directions and instruction, it would be better. Alas, in these games there are too many socially deficient types who do not know when to shut up.

See, my FC and static spend a lot of time in voice chat with each other when we're not raiding and those are the times when we talk about random crap like that. Raid time is srs bzns though. I'm one of those people that has (as someone else put it) auditory ADD - I have a very hard time paying attention to the raid itself if there's extra voice chatter. If people are talking about stuff outside the raid, I seriously just completely space mechanics and cooldowns and it's very frustrating to try to focus. So, raid time is all about mechanics and strategy (in-depth discussion being left for between pulls), with casual conversation being left out of it.

In any case, I don't see how wanting to chat with people I know and spend a lot of time with makes me socially deficient. Hell, I don't see how wanting to chat with people I just met makes me socially deficient either. o.O

Voice chat is definitely a great tool, like a DPS meter is a good tool, do we need voice chat? No of course not. Does it help? Of course it does. Are there cons to using voice chat? You have trolls,loudmouths, people who take rage to extremes and insult other members, people who hear a girl talk and act like they've never spoken to one before, people who curse you out for missing a mechanic , or people who make annoying sounds, people might tell someone their voice sounds terrible.

Any of these would get asked to simmer down in our Mumble channel.

We respect each other and the people that join us there.

There's a huge pro of fast communication, but there are a lot of cons involving the community, and you have to ask random people, including those with Anxiety to jump on to TS, Vent, Discord, with people they don't know, and if they can't for XYZ reason. You kick them, they could have been a really good player capable of playing without voice chat, but you'll never know until you try.

Being deaf or having anxiety are perfectly legitimate reasons to not be in voice chat. Someone that used to be in my FC had enormous social anxiety issues as well, and though we were disappointed she wouldn't be joining us in Mumble, we never forced her to come chat with us. I'm willing to give people a shot if they can't be in voice chat. When I say that, I mean a fair shot with an extra few wipes included while we figure out how to deal with specific situations without voice cue. It's no different than when my static had a color-blind BLM - you figure out ways to work around it. If they continually miss simple mechanics though, they'll be treated the same way as anyone else that couldn't perform regardless of voice chat use.

[Greedalox]

TS is a great tool to assist in raiding. Not everyone needs or wants to use said tool. If you don't want to use it, don't join a group who does. That simple, find a group who doesn't use voice chat.

[Cynric]

snip

See this is the way the community as a whole should treat voice chat. The problem comes when you have a good portion fo groups that are TS or no deal. Some groups are willing to work with people like yours and some others. Other groups would rather just say no and find someone who can use TS.

Then there's the issue of "if said group uses voice chat find one that doesn't"

I think it's similar to the "Groups require experience, but you need to raid to get experience" kind of thing. So many groups require voice chat that finding one that doesn't is a task, and if you know you can't voice chat for whatever reason, then you don't join groups that require TS, if you're good enough you could prove you work fine without it, but you have to be given the chance to show you're good enough, and a lot of statics like with players who are fairly new to fights, don't want to take that chance.

It's a pretty sad thing to think about. You could say make your own static. But these days that's one heck of a task, and with how many people require voice chat, I've noticed a lot of people won't join statics that don't use voice chat.

It's a problem, but it's a problem like many other things with our community, and not the game itself or the voice chat programs. Just the community is not as friendly and accepting as they could be. Especially in the raiding scene.

[Greedalox]

It's a problem, but it's a problem like many other things with our community, and not the game itself or the voice chat programs. Just the community is not as friendly and accepting as they could be. Especially in the raiding scene.

Literally the point of voice chat is cohesion, not to exclude someone. Everyone has to be on the same page, not half on one page and half on the other. What's the point of push to talk if you're going to have type the whole scenario out to one or two people anyways?

It stems from group cohesion and communication, not a societally rooted issue of disregarding those who have anxiety issues or what have you like you're making it out to be.

[Ilitsa]

my FC didn't bother to start a static in HW cuz no one had any interest in Alexander, but when we were doing coils and EX primals in ARR, we had a "Voice-chat optional" rule, it was there for everyone if they WISHED to use it, but they would be in no way forced into it, I opted to not because I find the talking more distracting than anything, and would rather just put my focus into the mechanics instead, in the end there were only like 2 or 3 people that ever really used it, and we cleared just fine. I understand the usefulness people find in having it, but I do think it's used more as a crutch than an aid for most.

[Morbid]

Literally the point of voice chat is cohesion, not to exclude someone. Everyone has to be on the same page, not half on one page and half on the other. What's the point of push to talk if you're going to have type the whole scenario out to one or two people anyways?

It stems from group cohesion and communication, not a societally rooted issue of disregarding those who have anxiety issues or what have you like you're making it out to be.

No it might be cohesion within (naturally) but there definitely is exclusion if you don't use VOIP just like the exclusion there is for people who don't watch video guides.

[Felmyst]

Hope nobody use teamspeak or mumble or vent still in 2016... Heard of Discord? If not run go learn anout it like ASAP!

I do not waste my time with High MS programs anymore and that looks like made out from windows 98. And turn down any FC or group that used anything else then Discord!

[Morbid]

Hope nobody use teamspeak or mumble or vent still in 2016... Heard of Discord? If not run go learn anout it like ASAP!

I do not waste my time with High MS programs anymore and that looks like made out from windows 98. And turn down any FC or group that used anything else then Discord!

See there's even exclusion within the exclusion of using VOIP and non-VOIP..

(Quoted may be satire but it fits right now)