WIP: Proximity Voice Chat

If this feature works across factions & even if it doesn't, it then gives other players around you the option/ability to verbally berate you at will. Be prepared for the onslaught of trash talk & tickets from ppl who got their feel goods hurt.

If I am in league or group chat, I dont want some random person to have the ability to tap in to my chat. If I need to speak w/ some1 in prox chat then I can use the existing toggle to do so. In 3 years I have yet to even require doing so. If I want to talk to some1 I will group them or type it.

Its bad enough that people are clueless w/ open mics chewing, listening to music, babies crying, ppl yelling at their baby momma, etc etc just in any random chat & we want to add an open communique for any1 in proximity. No thanks, i don't think this is a good idea at all.

Its nice that you want to make prox chat useful, as it stands now no1 really uses it or wants to, & I have never seen any1 request or talk about a need/want for this type of feature. Dirt has even said that no1 uses prox chat because their personal chat tabs are more important. So lets ask why is this...when I make a group, im in a group, or sitting in league chat...who am I expecting to have an open dialogue with? Only those people. Again, If I wanted to talk to random people I would be in the prox tab & not a group tab.
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Issue w/ push to talk...typically you push to talk & release to close. however, in its current state you can basically push to open it & keep it open by hitting powers & weapon attack...it then stays/locks open until you push it again to close. Easily replicated.

There is a similar issue w/ auto target lock option turned on & P2T, the dpad functionality stops working as soon as you go into combat & does not regain function until out of combat. That means no emotes, no checking loot, no push to talk, no checking status, etc. TBH its been a while since I have tested this issue. So if you P2T your mic then go into combat, you wont even have the option to turn it off until your out of combat. Or if you engage into battle & need to open your mic to speak, you cannot.

Previous threads in regard to above that were in the Arkham Bug reports section.
https://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/cant-use-d-pad.188835/#post-2326301

https://forums.station.sony.com/dcu...ot-ready-while-in-combat.196599/#post-2397364

The idea of it sounds good but as someone who has tried proxim, I've never seen a person use it as intended, music blasters, random conversations directed at people outside the game, open mics on high sensitivity, it works out in idea and ideal setting just not in a field setting with this many type of players

I feel that a form of proximity chat as listed in the OP would be useful INSIDE OF INSTANCES, but that's about it. I would not be a big fan in the watch tower, but it would be extremely helpful during an instance to be able to request that someone comes back from whatever chat channel they are in and communicate with the team they have joined.

The most important feature "proximity chat" needs to have is an "off" switch.

we really need a WIP thread about :

While you are at it, add a server text chat to eliminate people using trade and lfg to talk randomly across the whole server.

One of the main reasons we're looking at making it a corded push to talk (R2 plus D-Pad Right on the PlayStation), and are proposing a relatively small radius with an almost immediate falloff is to make it harder for people to blast music or be otherwise aggravating. In its current implementation, Proximity Chat is largely unused and unloved. We can either attempt to improve it and make it worthwhile, or get rid of it.

To anyone wondering why we would propose this feature when there are many more desirable additions we could focus on instead, this idea is coming from the engineer who has dramatically improved our Vivox voice chat implementation - making chat far more reliable and higher quality than it was. While he is still working on voice chat, making changes to Prox Chat will be relatively cost-effective and fast.

Can you make so that if u see someone talking in prox chat,you then can hit push to talk or something like that,to then hear and talk to them,while still remaining in your current voice channel.Also I would love it if prox chat let u talk to villains

That is essentially what is being proposed. You would see a unique icon above someone who is actively speaking in Prox Chat, and would only need to move closer to that person to hear what they're saying. You would still remain in your current voice channel. If you want them to hear you, then you simply use the Prox Chat push to talk button combo to do so. For instance, I could see coming up to a group of people hanging out at the Superman statue in Centennial Park, and asking them if anyone would like to duel.

Cross-faction voice chat is intriguing (and popular in this thread). We'll look into implementation details and get back to the thread with any findings next week.

Tbh i could care less about prox chat. Just my opinion. Like people have already said it could lead to alot of problems and this community already acts very immature at times. Imo getting rid of it would be the better idea. I saw where u guys said u could leave it or turn it off? The day it would hit live i would turn it off or leave the second i logged in. Players in this game already abuse trade chat and other forms on the chat and nothing is done about it. I can only imagine the problems that would come with prox chat with the way u guys wanna do it. My vote would be to remove it altogether.

ah well when u describe it that way it does sound interesting. Maybe your changing my opinion on it but please do something to deter people from abusing it and causing problems for others

From the sounds of it, it will be no skin off anyone's back if you implement this. So lets go for it.

As for the cross faction, yay!

The scenario you described really gave me a good grasb of what you are going for, with the overhaul of prox chat ,and I'm all for the changes.

I like the idea of proximity chat. Tried to use it a bit this weekend but no one was on. My only real concern is being in a nice private conversation and getting drive by trash talked. If I'm in private chat like league, I don't want to be interrupted and have to keep moving away from people to carry on a conversation. However, this could be very cool for seasonal events.

or you can just, like, walk away from the person that's doing it...

I really just hate the fact that dedicated players who love this game let trolls control how the game is played. Most of you said no to the idea, even though its potentially a great way to improve the social connectivity of the player base, only because of you are afraid of how it could be taken advantage of. I will never understand that. You willingly GIVE them the power. You give them decisions, but its YOUR game. Grow a backbone guys.

I think its an awesome idea. It would make it feel more like the people we play with are more than just NPC's. Of course some fail-safes will have to be put in place to make it work. The idea to make the prox chat volume lower than the rest i think is essential, as well as making sure we can't hear someone that is ignored.

It seems like you guys want to be proactive & add this feature due to the addition of future outside EVENTS so players in the certain area can communicate if not in the same groups during said events. The idea is pretty good & the cross faction ability would be great, but I'm not sure about the execution here Larry.

My gripe w/ this feature is only wrapped around other persons ability to enter my private chat. Why can't this feature be added w/o the ability for a prox chatter to be able to enter my chat space just because they are in a certain proximity to me? W/ prox chat already existing, why can't the prox chat tab be used exclusively for this? If a player sees anothers prox chat icon, if they are then interested in opening a dialogue w/ this person why can't switching tabs to prox be the way to go?

My group &/or league tabs are my private space & you are making them virtually accessible to any1. This is no different then if i was on the phone, if I am speaking w/ some1 I do not have to answer the incoming call but w/ the current structure of this feature, if I am in their range, I have to accept the interruption. Now compound this w/ more than one person in an area trying to do the same thing. What if you are around 20 ppl at the Superman statue who all want to duel, not that the duel flag above their head isnt a clear indicator, but they are asking in chat as well- who wants to duel, who wants to duel? Maybe they send you a duel invite in which you decide to decline, next up in prox chat, oh you suck, your weak, don't be a P****, etc etc & because you are close to them you have to hear it in your own private chat. Maybe you decide to fly away from the hate barrage...so what happens then if they decide to follow you?

Simple solution make this prox chat feature only work in the actual prox tab and when using prox the special icon can still pop up as the indicator that they are trying to communicate. It makes it so using this feature is only a toggle away to make use of the feature & voids any unwarranted communication from those in your surroundings. Done this way, I think it would be a great addition.

It's not a matter of "grow a backbone". That's just downright insulting.

The development team has limited resources. This is one of those things I'd view as extremely low priority considering the huge potential for abuse which in turn will result in numerous support tickets to Customer Service. I still haven't seen a response on how reporting abuse will work for voice. My guess would be a recording which in my opinion is not good enough as the entire player base does not have that kind of technology.

Simply saying to move away or ignore are equally not as viable as players can continue to make new toons.

I have kids who play this game and, of course, I don't allow them to play unsupervised, but there needs to be a 100% fool proof way of completely getting rid of proximity chat while still allowing for Group and League chats.

Considering all sides, I see more negatives than positives and I am baffled at why this is even being brought to the forefront. I'm assuming it has to do with the new open world events...which is a good idea in theory, but then it makes me wonder about how often it would be used as players would need to be close together.

In the end, yes, I see it as entirely unnecessary. We have many other options including custom voice tabs. It will undoubtedly take up precious time from both the development team as well as customer service. There are lists of other things I believe the dev team and customer service could work on that would be a better use of their time.

That is a great idea! We can even take it a step further and make that a feature we can control. Make it an automatic/manual switch. They will enter your chat space automatically, or manually if they wanted to. So it can work for people who wouldn't mind to be invaded, and people who do.

It isn't about backbone. It's about knowing when something is going to be more of an annoyance than a help. It's about making an intelligent decision and voicing an opinion without attacking others or being attacked. As it stands, if I want prox chat, I can very easily get to it, but if I don't want it, I don't have to put up with hearing unwanted annoyances in my custom chat.

Truth of the matter is when proximity chat was there it was annoying, unused by most, it was even unused for those who didnt have a league.

Most people( or advanced players) have their chats divided, amoung trade, lfg, etc.

If the game was constantly crowded and people were talking all the time and constantly saying/shouting things then yes proximity chat would be worthwhile to switch to. The way it is described is nice. However the usefulness still seems as though it is lacking and ATM I would prefer getting rid of it entirely and working on something more constructive than investing time and resources into proximity chat.