What do we think about in-game voice chat?
The communication wheel finally coming to DBD (it's been 10 years, and there was already something similar in the dead mobile version) is great news for solo survivor players, including myself. All of these efforts have been made in order to put SWFs and solo survivors on a similar level to make the game easier to balance. However, the main thing that makes SWFs so much more powerful in the first place is voice chat (usually Discord). The simplest solution would be to simply add voice chat to the game. In every other PvP game there are both the options of voice lines / communication wheels alongside the option to use an in-game voice chat.
I know that a lot of people would be concerned with toxicity, but no matter the PvP game I've played there has always been toxicity yet there is voice chat anyway exactly to balance people playing with friends vs alone. In addition, plenty of toxicity still just ends up happening in end game chat or even in game with sandbagging and body blocking anyway.
What are your reasons for or against voice chat in DBD? Would you rather it be proximity chat? In which case, would you want killers and survivors to hear each other? What do you think would be needed in order to make voice chat work in DBD, or do you think it doesn't work at all?
Comments
I've always been against it because sound is such an important aspect of this game. From Myers breathing, Ghostface's cloak flapping, Huntress wind up noise, Wraith gurgling, Springtrap clanking, etc etc. Being in a swf means linking up with like-minded folk with similar goals and motivations. Solo is nothing like that. The people that love the sound of their own voice, the bossy people who want to take charge and order everyone around, the edge lord teenager, the troll.... these are the people you will have in your ear when you're trying to pick up sounds and tells that enable you to actually play the game.
I can imagine a teammate with a loud keyboard and his family talking in the background. But jokes aside, I don't think even proximity chat with 4 people would be fair against one player. It might work if the killer could hear them too.
I've always been against it and I'd permamute everyone day one if it ever happened. I'm not listening to strangers tell me what to do. I'm not listening to their fans blowing in their face. I'm not listening to them eat. I'm not listening to their kids scream. And yeah, I'm not getting called slurs. I've done my time in those kind of games. I like that dbd doesn't have that.
I also don't think it bridges any gaps. People playing together are more team orientated becuase they know one another, not because they can talk. Talking won't make strangers care about one another.
Very bad idea on multiple grounds. It would make toxicity a million times worse, so most people would simply not use it, while not actually helping those who do since the majority of Survivors don't know what information to communicate anyway. Moreover, the infrastructure burden of moderating voice chat would be more than BHVR could ever possibly handle when we already know that their reporting system is pretty spotty: how could they track the thousands of hours of voice content in multiple different languages (often in the same match) being generated every day for stuff that's potentially against ToS? At best you'd have a massively cumbersome system diverting resources away from other parts of DBD that need attention and most players wouldn't use it for fear of getting flamed or called slurs when they're trying to concentrate. At worst you'd have some AI slop automod that doesn't even work properly and falsely bans people because it doesn't understand accents.
Personally I always imagined that if voice chat were in game, it would be similar to a game like Valorant. There is only push to talk, you can't just have your mic open all the time. And there would be a button to instantly mute all your teammates for a clutch (in this case chase, and ideally it would show an icon in the HUD next to your character to your teammates to let them know you can't hear them)
I have a several reasons against it.
End game chat toxicity isn't enough? I honestly don't want to deal with people screaming at their screens because I made a mistake.
I might be on board with it as an option, that you can turn off.
Fair enough. I mean if there was ever a voice chat added there would certainly have to be some kind of killer buff, but yeah I think at this point 10 years in DBD has built a community and an atmosphere around no comms unless you're playing with friends
I've always believed that the true power of SWF has never been comms directly, but being able to filter out much of the randomness that comes with solos.
You know if they're doing a daily or challenge etc. You know that they'll come back for you, and try very hard not to let you get to second stage. Over time you learn their strengths and weaknesses and tendencies. Solo queue cannot fully replicate all that, even with comms imo.
Something like half of all survs are in some form of SWF, mostly duos. That other half goes into trials with a different mindset than groups do, probably best described as a more "lone wolf" mentality.
This is best illustrated in the differences between the NA/EU servers and those in Asia. It is way more common (especially in NA) to be on comms and in a SWF than it is in the Asia servers, and how they play and what they run reflect this.
Whenever the devs put out global perk usage stats, Self Care is and always has been among the top used overall. Dismissed as a "bad perk" in NA and EU it remains a staple of Asian server builds, due to those players intending to be self-reliant at all times. Just one example.
if it ever comes, it should be completely optional, opt-in, not opt-out, never be considered to be used as Arguments for balancing and it would still be Problematic
Something I haven’t seen mentioned here yet though k agree with most arguments mentioned already is Language Barrier - playing on central EU (Frankfurt) servers is already for in-game chat not easy to communicate. Many do speak some English but there is still plenty that do not or not sufficient enough, especially from eastern Europe and also further southeast.. and somehow BHVR refuses to expand servers into that region even though there is very many players there AND they also suffer from bad connection/ping…
It should just be a once a year game mode ngl proximity chat for all players
I cannot think of a faster way to get me to go from playing mostly solo survivor to becoming a 100% killer main than adding voice chat to this game. Even as an opt-in thing, because every game that tries going 'oh, its just opt in, its fine' always ends up having it become The Done Thing™️ to the point where not using it will cause players to crash out. Immediate death of any remaining or future horror vibes, toxicity cranked up to eleven, and matches on the UK or EU servers would now average 4 different slurs in 6 different languages per trial on a good day.
The issues are the following:
•EU most people cannot communicate as they dont understand english
•Loud music annoys you
•The player kids screaming annoys you
•Slurs and dead threats insults on so many languages
•Attitude a player will want to order you around
•You didnt do X so the player announcing that throwing the game
•You hear an extremely annoying fan constantly blowing in
•You hear a 6-13 years old playing…
•Screaming constantly
•Ancient era equipment you hear constant distortion coming in cant even understand its so bad the voice quality
If anyone played TCM knows that comms did nothing to "bridge" the gap between premade and solo and you could experience these. I muted the option permanently quite fast
It would be a pretty bad idea overall for fairly obvious reasons. I'd be against it in all forms UNLESS I can use voice comms as the killer in which I will just blast memes and music just like the good ol' days with Half-Life DJ.
And should have stayed this way.
No