PC Player Advantage via Audio

@galactic-geek said in PC Player Advantage via Audio:

I'm not usually one to add to an already hot debate, but I've learned of something that definitively gives PC players a tremendous advantage - the audio. Specifically, party chat vs. game chat. I have learned about this thanks to friends who are on PC (I'm on Xbox).

You see, PC players can hear both game chat AND party chat AT THE SAME TIME! This allows them to conveniently both spy on the enemy and seamlessly relay what they learn to their crew. Conversely, an Xbox player has to switch between the 2 chat channels - while in 1, they cannot hear the other. PC players gain this advantage because their party chat comes from a different source - the Xbox app.

Rare, please find a way to fix this.

enable Voice to Text in your Xbox App settings. This allows the voice of other players with open mics, game chat, to be translated on your screen even though you can not heard them in "party". There is no easy push to talk only a swap to game chat option form the party controls.

@galactic-geek If people are speaking on the hot mic in the game and you are in a party on the xbox, they can still hear the game's hot mic. They just can't respond cause they have to switch channels. You still would be able to hear people talking in the hot mic while you were in a party.

@galactic-geek said in PC Player Advantage via Audio:

@sprungnickel427 I've used this in the past. While useful, it's far from perfect, and as such still gives the advantage to PC players.

true, weak work around and not great, but, a laugh when you see some of the translations Microsoft comes up with. Still you can be alerted and catch the gist of the talk from Texts. It's good to alert you of the presence of other players.

If push-to-talk was enabled on Xbox One in a way that players could stay in party chat but PTT in game chat, that would be great.

I'm a PC player but I often play with friends on Xbox One and it's annoying having to be the go-between relaying stuff back and forth when we need to talk to strangers. And many a misunderstanding could have been avoided!

So yeah, I don't think this would be, should be, or could be nerfed on PC, but I'd like to see Microsoft do a change to how Party Chat/Game Chat works on Xbox One. With more and more crossplay games, this will become a big issue.

this is the one disadvantage to the closed console system. I almost exclusively use party chat on xbox so nobody can hear me.

My crew and I never use party chat, always game chat. It's just easier. To me, it feels like we're more engaged in the world, especially with other players. It's the way the game was meant to be played. We do lose the ability to communicate surreptitiously, but we know each other well enough to still manage to pick up on each other's plans. It works fine for us.

When I'm solo, I usually turn off the mic completely. For random, fleeting encounters, I might use text or pirate chat. I'll turn on the mic if an encounter calls for it. But since I often play late at night, and my studio is right next to the bedroom where my other half is sleeping...I avoid voice chat.

None of which has much to do with the topic, granted. I do hope Rare will improve the voice support all around, so Xbox and PC users have the same capabilities.

Using 3rd party communication for Pc gaming is just a wildly accepted standard. It boggles my mind that Xbox makes you choose. I won't argue advantages, but it seems silly that Xbox doesn't follow this trend.

Personally, my feeling is that party chat should be disabled in-game. It totally breaks the immersive nature of the game. In fact, I'd say while alive you're only able to access crew-chat, while on the ferry you're only able to access party-chat, automatically switching when you die/resurrect. It makes sense you could discuss with other spirits what's going on in other parts of the physical world only while in the spirit-world.

@galactic-geek said in PC Player Advantage via Audio:

I suppose I could use party chat via the app on my phone while using game chat on Xbox, but IMO that creates a whole bunch of unecessary hurdles to jump over.

I do this all the time with the Xbox app and the Discord app on my phone. It isn't really any more of a hassle than having the use a separate app on a PC for voice chat. In fact, I find it much easier to use than that clunky Xbox app for Windows 10.

EDIT: My only complaint is that I can't hear game audio through my phone. I'm forced to use my wireless Apple AirPods for voice chat and hear game audio through my TV. So I get what you're saying. I'd much rather use my gaming headset for surround sound audio.

@garbhchu said in PC Player Advantage via Audio:

Personally, my feeling is that party chat should be disabled in-game. It totally breaks the immersive nature of the game. In fact, I'd say while alive you're only able to access crew-chat, while on the ferry you're only able to access party-chat, automatically switching when you die/resurrect. It makes sense you could discuss with other spirits what's going on in other parts of the physical world only while in the spirit-world.

Like other players have said, we can just simply use other chat apps like Discord.

@zormis — yep, and I am sure there will always be those pitiful louts whose only enjoyment in life is in pretending they are good at a game because they've found a way to circumvent limitations implied by the spirit of its terms.

I'm glad we all agree that in the interest of fair play none of us here would do that.

Like other players have said, we can just simply use other chat apps like Discord.

Or telephone, or CB radio. Xbox players, playing in the same room, have the same advantage.

@surveyorpete said in PC Player Advantage via Audio:

Like other players have said, we can just simply use other chat apps like Discord.

Or telephone, or CB radio. Xbox players, playing in the same room, have the same advantage.

Yeah, like me, my wife and son play with me time to time and we are all in the same room, we can even look at each other screens...

@commander-robbo said in PC Player Advantage via Audio:

Sorry I will clarify this feature is NOT in the game. I'm saying it should be easy enough for Devs to put it in for both platforms would mean pc plays wouldn't need discord and Xbox players have the feature to use too.

This is not something easy for the Devs to do anything about. In fact, it is pretty much impossible. Rare has no control over Xbox party chat and has no ability to make any changes to how it functions.

I've sailed crews with Xbox players who've spied on other Xbox players, so it's not an exclusive advantage to PC users. Players on Xbox should learn to use party chat AND be wary of stowaways.
A bigger reoccurring issue is that there's no cross-platform option for console gamers, so they continuously run into PC crews that have the upper hand in combat.