Raiding and Teamspeak.

[Cynric]

snip

People with social anxiety, or hearing issues raid all the time, people who are colorblind also raid all the time.

The level of social interaction required to do a raid is very minimal, you communicate through text with others to complete a task. No different than completing difficult quests back in the day that required more than just yourself. The problem is it takes a level of bravery to join a party/ raid group/static already. Then you have to take an even further step of bravery and actually use your voice to talk to people. Not everyone with anxiety is the same, not everyone with anxiety has it happen in the same way or at the same time.

It's really hard to say something as general as "typically people with high levels of social anxiety don't raid" without any proof ,statistics, or numbers to back it up, other than you "feel" that's the way it is based on your interactions. There are millions upon millions of gamers, and you think that everyone in the high end has no mental issues, high level of social anxiety, or problems with using voice chat?

[Mercutial]

It's grossly overrated because it is not needed to succeed in the content (contrary to popular belief). In fact, for players who know what they're doing, there is so many more drawbacks to VOIP than pros. When you know your job, VOIP is mostly just inane babble that you would rather not hear.

And you don't even raid at a top-tier by your own admission. Your expertise on the usefulness of VOIP for top-tier raiding is considerably suspect in that case. Do you often speak as a expert on things you don't have experience with?

[Eli85]

OP is talking about Raids. You may not know anything about that.

Just because I don't raid savage in this game, does not mean I know nothing about raids. I have raided plenty in other games. I know how they work.

If you do your research, come prepared, and do your job, that is all that is required to execute mechanics.

If you need a raid leader to coordinate your job, or remind you to do this or that, you really shouldn't be raiding in the first place

[Eli85]

And you don't even raid at a top-tier by your own admission. Your expertise on the usefulness of VOIP for top-tier raiding is considerably suspect in that case. Do you often speak as a expert on things you don't have experience with?

Because FF XIV is the only game that has "top tier raids," right?

[Mercutial]

It's not always about a raid leader "doing call-outs" or "coordinating". It has a lot to do with a raid team discussing strats between pulls... conveying split second decisions to teammates due to the RNG nature of many of the game's mechanics.... and (gasp) fostering a team-like environment that every successful static has.

Your insinuation that only poor players use VOIP as a crutch borders on trolling. And any serious raider would agree with that.

[Cherie]

Having someone that can't use VOIP because of being deaf or other reasons isn't a big deal at all. When I raided in rift, we had a deaf person in our static and they were awesome. It did help that we had everyone else in VOIP of course. Most of the people I've known that couldn't be in VOIP for a raid were good on their toes or could type fast.

Not being able to voip isn't a excuse to not pay attention. I've also known many people who didn't want to talk only so they could just ignore everyone and watch tv at the same time.... -_-

Knowing the difference is the key. Some people just can't. Some don't want to. Some just can't be bothered. Having a team is about having everyone do what they can to help the team succeed.

In my experiences raiding in probably 4-5 different games(wow, rift, ffxi, aion, city of heroes) over many years now with different static groups, it would be weird to not voip with them. It's the whole point of having a static group. You need to know who you are playing with so you can work together and plan stuff out. If you could beat the content in a pug and never speak to anyone, you'd already be doing it.

[Eli85]

It's not always about a raid leader "doing call-outs" or "coordinating". It has a lot to do with a raid team discussing strats between pulls... conveying split second decisions to teammates due to the RNG nature of many of the game's mechanics.... and (gasp) fostering a team-like environment that every successful static has.

Your insinuation that only poor players use VOIP as a crutch borders on trolling. And any serious raider would agree with that.

Is this why there are many statics (on the JP side) that do not use VOIP at all? Strat discussion should be used outside of raid hours, unless there is a cataclysmic problem. If you execute properly, there are no split-second decisions that needs to be communicated. Voice chat does not solely foster a team-like environment. If you rely on voice to do this, there is a problem with your static.

I also never said only poor players use VOIP. What I said was VOIP is often used to compensate for poor players who could not do the content otherwise. The players who have poor situationally awareness, do not research or prepare, and need the constant reminders to perform.

That != only poor players use VOIP.

[Jpec07]

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.

Have you ever heard a raid leader call "clear vent"? It's kind of amazing, actually. People will shut up and let the raid leader lead the raid. Any social aspect that interferes with the gameplay can effectively be cut by this. And if someone doesn't get the memo, you have the power in these situations to mute them.

In terms of more practical usage (within raids) it is grossly overrated. In most non-world first situations, the raid leader is often talking to an extent that they are over compensating for the failures of their raid group. Switch to here, don't stand in this, stun this or that. If you have the right people in the group who do their jobs, not a single thing has to be said or coordinated (not even resurrections).

Right, but its benefit comes when learning a given fight. It is an extremely efficient means to communicate, because it doesn't tie up your hands for even the moment it would take to press a macro button - you can bind your push-to-talk key somewhere that won't interfere (I have mine as the tilde key), so you can continue playing without gimping yourself. If used right, it can be tremendously helpful when people are still trying to figure out what to do. I'm also willing to bet that all of the world-first FCs have some sort of VoIP that they use for communicating.

Basically, VOIP is a crutch that allows people to raid who really shouldn't. If you come to a fight prepared, pay attention to everything around you, you do not need instructions over VOIP, period. North American players are just so inundated with "if you're not on VOIP you're doing it wrong." Which only became a thing because so many players are terrible at games, and the talkative raid leader became a means for them to perform marginally at the content.

Complex mechanics may require that extra attention called to their occurrence. Having them called by a single individual who's focusing on them can free up mental energy to focus on your rotation. Sure, you'll need to be conscious of those things anyway, but having someone say "aerial bombardment on Jim!" allows you to not watch for it yourself - you just know that you need to get away from Jim (or if you ARE Jim, that you need to gtfo the raid). Again, having good raid awareness will help anyway, but raid calling is a way of helping to level the playing field, and allow people to focus on other aspects of their performance.

Personally, I have heard enough social deficient banter in all my years of playing to do without it. Really glad that I don't do savage, so I never have to use it in this game.

Have you ever gone in with friends, though? Vent and VoIP become completely different when you're in with people you actually like talking to.

[Kurogaea]

......a bit off-topic but alot of hyurs look the same. Was a bit difficult for me to keep up with the previous convo XP

[Alahra]

I'm somewhat socially anxious in crowds (with a "crowd" to me being any group larger than three or four), so I'm not the type that likes to "hang out" on VOIP with FC members and stuff like that. I do host a TS server for any progression groups that I run, but at times I need to zone out the conversation to focus on the task at hand because of the effort I need for social interaction. With the right groups, I actually find the socialization helpful to reduce the tension of raiding (which also gives me some anxiety issues at times) as long as it doesn't get to the point where it's detrimental to the group's success.

VOIP isn't necessary by any means but it certainly provides benefits, especially in progression situations, that will generally allow for better success. That's a large part of why it's so common in top-tier raiding environments, I'd imagine.