Upcoming Vocie Chat : Yay or nay?

[ThatsOurEric]

https://kotaku.com/with-voice-chat-c...bra-1822819814

The article up above does point out some positives, but also quite a few negatives surrounding
the upcoming addition of voicechat.

Although it can create a more focused teamplay, it also, this being a MOBA and all, create a
very toxic environment. Just look at League of Legends and its infamous history.

Personally, I don't think Blizzard is ready for the shit storm that is heading their way. I mean
they can't get a handle on Overwatch, and they're bringing this into Heroes of The Storm?

[Deleted]

Good that it comes. Will use it in TL - where I already use voice chat if the group offers it. Won't use it in HL EU, would use it in HL US. They should consider offering language voice chat so people could opt in for - just an example - English/German/French and opt out for east and south european languages.

Considering harassment, reports, complaints I expect a shit show, and it is 100% not feasible to police the environment as the amount of data is magnitudes bigger than with text communication.

nb. The study quoted in the text is based on 245 multiplayer matches, which is an awfully small sample.

[Nikkaszal]

That article's viewpoint is fucking stupid - "using voice chat will potentially open me up to harassment as a minority".

So... don't use voice chat if you're not comfortable with it. Duh.

"But I have to otherwise the team will be missing information"

Four people talking and one person electing to stay silent will still have more info conveyed than 5 silent people pre-voicechat.

Honestly... this is fucking retarded

[Belize]

Turn off day one.

Not interested in hearing screeching.

[ophion1990]

People just need to stop getting upset over someone trying to be funny by trolling or someone venting their anger over a video game. It's so ridiculous to be against a highly requested feature just because someone might be mean to you.

"But I have to otherwise the team will be missing information"

Four people talking and one person electing to stay silent will still have more info conveyed than 5 silent people pre-voicechat.

Honestly... this is fucking retarded

Their point is that the enemy team will have 5 people communicating, versus 4 on their team. I agree that it's a crap argument though. Not to mention that most of the stuff they say on voicechat is gonna be stuff that you don't need to hear anyway. It's hilarious how everyone is so pro disabling chat because it's unneeded but disabling voicechat is shooting yourself in the foot.

[Nerraw]

5 people communicating in chat now should still be better than 4. Voice chat is just a different medium. Yeah, people can be asshats in voice chat, but how is text chat any different?

I doubt I'll be using it in every game, but I will definitely keep it open for Hero League games.

[DesoPL]

Instead of adding voice chat where biggest issue right now is with matchmaking and badly designed report and punishment system. Blizz should fix matchmaking and rework whole report and punishment system.

This will only make problem even bigger, lead even maybe to more people leaving HOTS.

[melzas]

How is blizzard going to stop fake reports in voice chat? I doubt they would record every game so it will most likely be down to the amount of reports. At least with chat reports you can appeal them and if they were indeed fake, you would get your ban lifted.

This voice chat will be a gigantic failure - at least on european realms. Russians usually dont speak english and eastern europe is like 50/50. It won't be unlikely to end up in a team where 4 people don't even understand what you are saying anyway. But surely reports for abusive voice chat will quickly become a tool to punish scapegoats and vent frustration, and since they can't even be properly inspected... Yeah...

[Every Pwny]

Voice chat is fine and if you don't like it you can disable it, if someone is harassing you, you can mute them. It's not a big issue at all.

[RH92]

I won't be using it for sure. I don't know man, from my experience, voice chat never really improved anything.

I personally think voice chat is highly overrated in any pug environment. You get very limited time to know your allies and a lot of people have issues forming their thoughts into words, on top of that you got egos. Everybody is different and finding the best way to communicate is really hard and in such highly reactive and impulsive environment such as Hero League, I don't see it making a huge impact on improving gaming experience. Problem is, people don't have to talk when things are going right and when a problem arises you get a clash of egos.

Now if you are talking about true competetive environment, communication is a massive tool. However it needs a time to grow and after mastering it, you reduce words to minimum. Also playing with friends or colleagues helps to destroy overblown egos.

Another reason why I won't be using it, I find it annoying to hear people mumbling and breathing noises when I get to play a game.

[Adramelch]

How is blizzard going to stop fake reports in voice chat? I doubt they would record every game so it will most likely be down to the amount of reports. At least with chat reports you can appeal them and if they were indeed fake, you would get your ban lifted.

You can record the game and if no reports are made you delete it. Not saying that they'll do that, but there's ways to work around the problem.

[Deleted]

I didn't have a problem with voice chat in overwatch - back when i used to play comp i'd get into it every game and very rarely had to mute a person - truth be told in most matches people tended to stay silent, and when they talked most of the time they actually tried to communicate

although it was at the very beginning when OW was released, haven't touched the game in a long time

i'm kind of on the fence for hots though, purely because you don't have the filter of having to buy the game first so every 13yo with overblown ego can play

still, at worst you just mute the person and move on

btw, a question - does anyone know if you will have the voicechat during draft phase for league / unranked games or only for the actual game? cause i'd say its way more useful during draft to try and make a viable team, in game you can mostly communicate with pings

[Zuben]

I always keep voice chat muted by default in any game, since I can't be arsed to listen to bad english spoken through bad mics. And I use Discord when playing with my friends.

On the topic, I can see how voice chat could make the experience worse for minorities. But is that enough reason not to implement a feature into the game? By this year of 2018 the community at large has identified toxicity as a major problem. Figuring out how to extinguish it is of great importance, but I feel measures like not including generally useful features like voice chat is just collectively burying our heads in the sand.

[Ealyssa]

People on average are way less toxic by voice than by writing in chat.

I barely play hots, but voice is pretty much mandatory in high ranked overwatch. Doubt it isnt the same in a HotS. I played smite for a long time, and the curse voice integration really helped.

[Player Twelve]

I'll turn it off just like I do in overwatch. I don't want to listen to someone screaming on voice chat nor do I want to listen to people speaking other languages than english.

[Twen]

99% of VC with random people is the following in order from least to most annoying:
- complete silence
- background noises (tv/other people/animals/etc)
- bodily noises (breathing/eating/etc)
- random unrelated bullshit talk
- speaking other languages than english
- raging / screaming
- targeted harassment

and 1%
- actually useful match-related information

Therefore it'll be disabled for me, because fuck that noise, literally.

[anzay]

Will also turn it off and keep using Discord.

[Charge me Doctor]

going to use it just like pings and other announcements, and i have 0 tolerance policy on toxicity, mute right after the very first outbreak.
the very first "omg valla wtf ur doing" scream after valla overextended to get a really cheeky and risky kill and fail at level fucking 4 - instant mute and "please don't put this person into my games" tag

probably better saying "pyromaniac and combustion up, lets push a fight somewhere" than pinging on abilities that they are ready

- - - Updated - - -

Their point is that the enemy team will have 5 people communicating, versus 4 on their team. I agree that it's a crap argument though. Not to mention that most of the stuff they say on voicechat is gonna be stuff that you don't need to hear anyway. It's hilarious how everyone is so pro disabling chat because it's unneeded but disabling voicechat is shooting yourself in the foot.

Agree, there is no point in disabling it whatsoever. If you meet someone who can't properly tune his mic and has tv or stream on background - just mute this guy, next game, these things happen extremely rarely from my experience

[AeneasBK]

I'd be more in favour of a swing towards NO customisable communication (i.e. get rid of text, use emotes like hearthstone) rather than expanding the opportunities for randoms to criticise everyone other than themselves in a given situation.

[Twoddle]

These things should be included as an option from day one as standard.