Do you use In game voice chat often? State your reasons as to why not/yes.

@abjectarity
Good point, I feel like theres a few bugs when it comes to communication in this game which can sadly skew peoples perception to add to your point.

For me I have the fortune of having lived an entirely different kind of life before getting into online gaming. A lot of my conduct development was done prior to my experience with something like SoT. Point being is that by time I got involved in this environment I already was in a situation where I am not only careful with my conduct I generally don't communicate in a way that is a clear violation of ToS. So I just implement situational awareness and avoid people that I know are creating content and get to know people outside of content creation. Voice/text/message doesn't matter to me.

I don't report people, largely because I'm fairly effective at avoiding escalation and I don't bait anyone so really I'm out of situations when I can tell that trouble is on the way.

I try to conduct myself in general in a way where I have enough consideration, consistency, transparency, and honesty to where I don't get myself in much trouble. It's why I always acknowledge that I have made many mistakes and anything I offer as advice has been formed from my mistakes not because I am "better" than anyone else. That's why I don't approach these topics from the basis of judgement, more encouragement to keep self out of trouble and others from being harmed by harmful behavior. I've given a lot of advice to players of this game, my own accountability and conduct are vital in being a part of that.

If at some point it becomes clear that I am not welcome anymore I'll just move on. At the end of the day it's a game and they get to run their game how they want, I can just move on if need to for one reason or another.

As far as other people talking, I have no expectations. People don't owe me anything, I'm not going to treat someone different whether they use or don't use a mic or communicate how they do or don't communicate.

Some of my favorite open crew sessions a few years ago were with people that didn't say anything and people where we didn't share a common language

There have been parts of this environment that have been therapeutic for me so I try to keep that in mind while participating and interacting.

@ix-indi-xi

I prefer to play on my couch (XBOX), on my big TV with surround. I'm typically by myself and don't want to sit there with a headset on. I duo with a IRL friend some of the time and then I use a headset and Discord. In those instances definitely wish could also toggle to hear the "game world" chat but we don't really push or seek out encounters with other players so instances where it could be helpful are minimal on the whole. Do wish there was a function to toggle to hear while also using Discord though, which we moved to after several instances of frustration trying to even get XBOX party chat working reliably and with quality.

Main reasons I don't:

I'm quite a bit old(er) than the lion's share of players I'm guessing. Alot of (most) encounters are simply annoying or puerile. I don't think I'm a crabby get off my lawn type of guy but when I'm trying to enjoy a game the last thing I want to deal with is some kids test driving expletives or guys half my age trying to create fodder for streams and/or their "bong cruise" antics and trollish behavior. When I walked away from the game last time (after playing intently for a good amount of time from launch) it was because trying to find people to play with was a depressing descent into this kind of thing every single time and I felt super limited by what I could ever hope to accomplish alone.

When aggressive players (let's be honest, almost everyone) roll up it's almost always accompanied with behavior and language that would get them clocked if within arm's reach in real life. I just don't have the time or the inclination. I enjoy the sessions where you do pass another player(s) and even might share a port for a couple of mins without messing with each other's business but it's exceptionally rare. In those cases it would be nice to exchange hellos or simply confirm intent but they are so infrequent that not having the opportunity to hardly seems a loss. None of this means I don't enjoy conflict or challenge or tense gameplay, I just don't need it with all of the above attached to it.

All of that said it would be nice to be able to at least get a better sense of intent when passing within earshot of someone, if not just happen upon some more players in a positive way (even if fighting). I realize it's not helpful to default everyone to a worst case example but it's unfortunately a durable presumption.

I don't turn on my mic and I have the chat volume at 0. I don't need to hear some brainless 20 something smoking, choking, talking smack and swearing.

Talk about breaking immersion.

I used LFG for a brief moment and here are some of the results.
A British guy joined up and after finding out I was an American, he ranted the entire time about how we are all backward terrorist training school shooting gun fanatics while knowing nothing about it. The type that thinks AR stands for assault rifle. He never relented and I eventually left.

Had a little kid join which is fine, kids can be cool, except the ones that aren't. He couldn't stop screaming into the mic.

Then a creepy guy joined that whispered into his mic and I could never figure out what he wanted. I was stranded with loot and he was supposed to bring in a new ship. But he didnt know where to go and I couldn't communicate with his whispering. After a lengthy investment, he quit.

Most people just join and quit. Or they do play the game but the moment a fight goes wrong, its everyone elses fault but their own and they rage quit. So if you are a cool gamer, you are losing out on playing with other cool gamers since they opt out of social gaming.

@dakota-greg said in Do you use In game voice chat often? State your reasons as to why not/yes.:

I used LFG for a brief moment and here are some of the results.
A British guy joined up and after finding out I was an American, he ranted the entire time about how we are all backward terrorist training school shooting gun fanatics while knowing nothing about it. The type that thinks AR stands for assault rifle. He never relented and I eventually left.

Had a little kid join which is fine, kids can be cool, except the ones that aren't. He couldn't stop screaming into the mic.

Then a creepy guy joined that whispered into his mic and I could never figure out what he wanted. I was stranded with loot and he was supposed to bring in a new ship. But he didnt know where to go and I couldn't communicate with his whispering. After a lengthy investment, he quit.

Most people just join and quit. Or they do play the game but the moment a fight goes wrong, its everyone elses fault but their own and they rage quit. So if you are a cool gamer, you are losing out on playing with other cool gamers since they opt out of social gaming.

It really just depends on how much time someone puts into it and people's personalities and preferences.

I played open crew for a couple of years, I would do my comms solo, get the monthly content done solo and then hang out in open crews.

I saw and heard just about everything someone can see and hear in this game around random people lol, it wasn't bad because I put a lot of time into it. There is a part of me that is compatible with being dropped randomly into situations and then figuring out how to navigate that so it was compatible for me.

A lot of people go into situations with expectations and that's just going to lead to disappointment. Being around random people in an environment like this is about making the best out of the random situations. People are gonna be different, only way to find what works is to keep trying because there really is no other way to find random compatibility.

What helped me is I always kept in mind that I have never been more important than anyone else in the game. Preferences, style, communication, etc. Everyone else was every bit as much within their freedom as me and we are all equals in the environment. If I had to remove myself from an encounter that wasn't on them. Nobody ever owes me anything. That's how I got to the heart of the experience. Kept going, kept trying, held on to what worked and let go of what didn't.

@no-mic-sotta said in Do you use In game voice chat often? State your reasons as to why not/yes.:

@ix-indi-xi .

Yo, I know who you are lol. You might have seen me in LOT or LBH but I'm the only comp no mic player right now. I have to be VERY careful about what I type because of how report-happy people in this game can be (unfortunately). I always keep voice chat on, though, because I find it quite funny when people try to be toxic to me and get slammed. I don't really care about toxicity so it doesn't bother me at all when I hear it, I just make sure to put two holes in their boat and camp them for the sink :)

If you're doing it as a tool to keep yourself in check that's understandable but you really only face consequences for crossing the line.

I've criticized the social games of reporting in SoT for a long time but they can't make anything out of nothing. Just avoiding the harsh stuff keeps people out of trouble for years in pvp.

It's not like people are really walking on eggshells, there are people around the community that are tudey for a long time before it catches up to them, typically by time the yellowbeards start there is a whole lotta smack talk in their history. People claim they are innocent and the heroes being punished, their friends come in to support them, the whole thing, just don't be harsh and then nobody has anything to enforce on.

@no-mic-sotta said in Do you use In game voice chat often? State your reasons as to why not/yes.:

@wolfmanbush

Nah, I've made my entire SOT reputation around being the first comp no mic lol. I have never been toxic because I genuinely don't care enough about a pirate game, but even telling someone to "pipe down" after they were toxic first can get you banned in this game. It's SUPER easy to get mass-reported for nothing or to get clipped out of context and banned.
The sad reality is that parts of the TDM/Comp naval community really do have to walk on eggshells.

As far as I know mass reporting isn't as effective as people feel it is, if it were there would be very few pvp streamers left lol

A lot of comp players have been/were around years and a lot of the ones that left did so on their own terms

I get what you're getting at, as someone that has criticized parts of it for a long time, I do get it.

As someone that is not a part of the sot network or any specific scene (outside of forum participation) or conflicted with personal attachment all I can say is that from my observations of the different situations that pop up socially I haven't seen much that I would consider unjust and I don't see the signs of any sort of systematic issue on actual enforcement.

All the time.

In over two years playing the game, I never found anyone being toxic through voice chat. In fact, one time I had a girl complimenting my accent instead. Go figure.