Squad Leaders and Platoon Leaders, STOP muting/ignoring Command Chat- and use TEAMWORK

TLDR at end of post:


First things first


I led Squads, Platoons, and Companies as a OIC(127 people led by me) in MAG, hundreds of times- maybe more, as I was quite big on that MMOFPS. So, trust me when i say that communication can HELP what you're trying to do- but we have a problem here



I don't know if it's just my server- but after the merge of Jaeger(my former server) and Waterson, the way a few Platoon Leaders and Squad Leaders (VS) have operated, is ... ..disregardful of the purpose of some things.




I am a random platoon leader- I Squad Lead and Platoon Lead very often- and I enjoy it. I not too long ago bought the command Channel/Squad Leader Cert, which let's you do the following things

• /Orders. Let's you type /orders, then a message up to a very small character limit- for all forces on the continent to see. Sort of like a continent wide /re (which is region chat)
• /Leader (Also usable as /Command) - Lets you type messages to every Squad Leader and Platoon Leader...on the (Server?)map who have bought this also, allowing you to chat with them this way
• Squad Leader voice chat(Called the Command Channel by most)(Default key is 7, it's called SL chat in the keybindings)- lets you talk using your voice to every Squad Leader and Platoon Leader who have bought this.

So, when i first acquired this ability- I had mixed feelings. One one hand- i was suddenly able to call for backup from Multiple platoons while running my own- and we could move our forces across a continent and gang up as Multiple platoons- which suddenly let us attack enemy TR and NC forces when they have 3 or more platoon on a point, and we end up needing to fight them in a massive mega-fight.
On the other hand- the system is a bit limited, in that we have to use Platoons, and not companies of multiple platoons as a group- , making it so the most you can micromanage is 48 people
So, not fully developed, but still functional while SOE gets on the ball and does better ingame support



Then- suddenly, one day I'm on Esamir, enemy platoons are starting to show up- I decide to do what i did the last time i led on Esamir a few days beforehand, and get the show on the road regarding serious ops- and hop on the Command Chat- and suddenly i get bashed heavily from people for using the voice chat. They said to stick to the Leader text chat only. They also said they auto-muted it often. While not everyone was of that opinion- i don;t quite understand


I've gathered since then that
-There have been people who have promoted stuff, or not used it for strategic stuff. Fair enough
-Someone's own voice comms in a Platoon is heavy. - For this one, it's understandable- but to mute it out completely? That makes it a waste of your certs, * and shouldn;t everything have equal priority? As in, if you are in the middle of a conversation, finish that, then simply re-ask the person on command channel their request, or go ahead and USE leader text chat.
-Apparently abusers were common on the server that merged with mine, and so people have ill taste in their minds of something i didn't encounter on my own server. And what they are doing is ruining the successful dynamic i've seen done often when we worked together on the map.

*doubly so since the leaders text chat is ignored even more- see below...................................................................................................................................................









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Now, about /leader text chat. After getting bashed for even touching the voice comms by a person, I went ahead and used their suggestion, and tried to coordinate platoons off of the text chat only. What happened? No one cared that i was on it, almost. it was ignored MORE than the voice comms, by FAR- with the exception of a few dedicated Sl's and PL's who did answer, and establish dialogue.
Is there a reason for this? I understand a lot of you guys have your Outfits doing their own thing- or are using other things than the in-game voice comms. However, there's TONS of random platoons and squads that aren't using those comms - and we have forces on the map that would probably benefit from coordinating with you on the macro-level. You know, real strategic planning? Why tell Leaders like me and others to go to text chat, then suddenly go quiet and not give a care ,leaving us in the dark? The sudden switch makes no sense
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*Related* Until re-cently, whenever a ...abuser of voice comms was ...going off on a tangent, there was a volume slider under theri name that i could slide ,and i could reduce their voice from their mic- and hear others. I dont see it- did a update remove that? if So, why in the world did SOE remove that ability? That does not help situations like the above- it could have solved it , and the removal of might be what's causing this if some servers have issues where command voice comms are abused- we need that added back.

My case is this: Until SOE expands the way we interact in this game- DO not ignore the command channel, but USE what you certed into. /orders can only be used so often, and /re might not reach the forces you need to talk to. /yell ...isn't optimal, unless you're talking to the enemy forces - which is strangely amusing and ...serious at times, but ..it's range is even more limited than /re, isn't it? So it isn't even ...the best option.

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If there is a abuser- and you can't individually mute the mic of someone who isn't using the voice command channel for game-related reasons , Then go ahead and mute the whole channel, it makes sense to for a short second- but if you DO, then USE the Leaders text chat , and don't ignore every power you have.
Know what i'm going to do? Ignore them, because they won't keep using the channel- then I'll use it for REAL leading, which is why I play this game.



IF you are leading a squad or a Platoon and someone asks for backup on Leaders text chat- do not belittle them. IF they use the voice comms- DO not mute the whole channel because someone asked for a sitrep. That is going to hurt the game. And it is immature , and i would think we can be respectful.


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If you do the above, your actions are going to dissuade potential great squad Leaders and Platoon leaders from being the best they can be- and when SOE does finally expand our power to command multiple platoons- we won't have the leaders needed to command them.
See, some of us WANT to eventually be able to work with units larger than 48 men(and women), in a way better than the current system. Those 800- tank fights, or 600 man armies we want? They're not going to happen if we dont have the leaders who have the spirit to do it.
And if you don't want to see forces larger than 48 people in the game- you are playing the wrong game, I suspect.

For what it's worth, I'm going to use the Squad Leader voice chat- aka the command channel. I already use /leader, and I use /orders every now and then. I'm going to continue to backup the forces on the map who call for it when i can reasonably do so- I WILL not ignore Squads in the map just because i am a PL and not a SL- we're in this together as far as control of the continent goes.
And no, I am not disrespectful on the voice comms- at all. There's no room for that. And seriously, it's too much fun being in the role , for me to even think about that sort of thing.
I consider this me leading by example, also...
oh, And, I paid the 100 certs also, so i am going to use what i certed into- but that's not a real argument.
But this is: It takes a lot of working together from a lot of people, to make stuff happen in PS2 when the opponents are massing forces, and it gets macro as much as micro. So I ask that you do as i do, and use the in-game powers at our disposal to really make gears move. And don't be like those who ignore the powers in game. They might not be the best they can be yet- but that doesn't mean give up everything. You'll be missing out otherwise- and leaving others in the dark.
TLDR: Stop muting voice comms unless you absolutely have to- and don't keep it muted.
Stop ignoring leaders chat
Work together
STOP bullying other leaders about how they lead squads and platoons
Dont suddenly go mute because someone dared talk to you in a human voice instead of a text message
and , if you don't mind- see what you can do when you have the other leaders backing you up.

-Tippership( <- my in-game name, Waterson, Vanu Sovereignty)
-Tippership Commander
-Zapon Ki (Zapon)
-one of the few dedicated non-outfit(at the moment) Platoon leaders

We need hotkeys that temporarily mute certain channels when held down or toggled and a small visual reminder on the UI/HUD to help keep track of it. Right now, a platoon leader has to repeatedly tell his platoon to clear comms before he can even hear what's being said in command chat.

There is proximity chat, squad chat, platoon chat, outfit chat, command chat, and non-game communicatory software to deal with.

While I agree in concept with what your saing, it is IMPOSSIBLE to hear with all the chats going off at once. Platoon chat is always active, or mumble, or Teamspeak. I like the concept of command voice chat, but Im with the people who told you to type...

NOW

What you can try is, type in /leader, then in Command Voice, let people know you typed something.. "Read Command Chat" etc..
I doubt people are trying to ignore what you type.. but killspam//say//yell can spam **** off rather quickly.

If you're with me in concept, but against due to implementation- why not do as i do, and use *** properly, and simply migitate all problems by going about it smartly until it's fixed? I don't talk for more than 5 seconds or so on Command channel until i know other leaders are able to discuss back- common courtesy.

We're letting something go to waste- and furthermore, for the largest battle, you can't communicate fast using the text chat. I don't think it's just me- when you have over 4 independent squads trying to hit speciic objectives at base- and things change so quickly, you need to let others know- and trying to type while in the action and switching frantically back and forth between the map and the other views- that runs into issues that command chat could solve, and is THERE for it.

Unless in a urgent situation- for the rest it's not fair to prioritize other chat over Leader chat. I could say the same thing about squads and platoons. ala i could out and out say "use platoon and squad chat and who needs to talk to their squad leaders"-

but we can create a better dynamic with the tools we have, rather than disregarding something we went after and acquired for a reason.

Is it really going to help the game in the long run to ignore the voice comm in all scenarios?


I have specifically called out people on leaders chat multiple times who were talking with me on voice comms but stopped- They don't answer. They also won't answer /tells either. And often, i'm not the only one wondering where they went -other leaders do as well

I mute command chat sometimes because I'm trying to concentrate on what my squad / teamspeak is saying, and don't want to hear what's happening on a continent I'm not on (if I'm fighting on Esamir and listening on stuff on Indar).

I agree in principle with what you're saying, a challenge is for a few small certs, any fool can start screaming "orders" or leader chat in my ear, when I'm also trying to coordinate operations (sometimes "large" scale) of a combined arms force on teamspeak.

I also mute proximity for the same reason - anyone I want to LISTEN to or HEAR is on the outfit TS server.

But, I read, reply and action text chat from leader a lot. Anyway, when you get used to quality of teamspeak (or mumble, or whatever) the in game VOIP is like static in your ear.

But why keep it muted after your squad is out of the hot situation and done speaking more or less?


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It's funny, MAG solved this problem with this system where a normal squad member could not talk to the platoon leader unless he was in that person's squad- and so on.
Squad leaders could talk to every other squad leader, and the platoon leader-(and OIC if he was in their platoon)

Pls could talk to other PLs, and the OIC, andvoice broadcast to the entire platoon

OIC could voice broadcast to the entire platoon, talk to all PLs,
and everyone could talk to anyone in their own squad-

We need MAG's platoon system, very badly- that'd stop this mess.
----Quoting my OWN guide i wrote for MAG a few years ago
http://community.us.playstation.com...omm-Chat-Channel-Guide-by-Zapon/td-p/33572666

a lot of leaders do that- but what about the few of us who lead platoons and forces and dont use teamspeak?

Combined forces ops- what about the rest of us? Are we resigned to just operate with whatever forces we control? If you effectively whitelist the few who you can hear- and everyone does that, then we won't reach the possible combined force sizes we could.

As for the final problem- can't they just upgrade the voice comms in game to solve that?

Oh my god, I won't even read the OP's post because it looks like someone just drooled a mouthful of Skittles all over the screen.

Because it's muted, and I haven't noticed the lack of voice because it's a lack of voice. So I don't remember to go to options and re-enable it. Typically because command tends to be silent for long periods of time, then erupt into chatter out of nowhere. And when I'm busy fighting, I don't want to be telling my squad "I can't hear anything, give me a moment to go and mute command chat..."

Also tryhard people irritate me.

"X THIS IS Y HOW COPY OVER."
"Y THIS IS X SEND MESSAGE OVER."
"Y REQUESTING ASSISTANCE AT GRID REFERENCE WHATEVER REQUEST ASSIST OVER"

What I read (and sometimes action, or sometimes say myself) on leader chat is not so time scale specific.

On TS, I'm saying things like "they're on B", "don't go in there, mines on the point", or whisper list to the outfit air squad leader on TS "need scythe support from air squad to get this lib off us". Basically, very time sensitive things that are relevant right now.

On leader chat, I'm reading, actioning, or typing things more like "We need help on Esamir, or we're going to get warp gated and lose our bonus", or "Any outfits available to help us, we're getting pushed back off XXX base". You get the idea, it's not topics that affect right now, it's more slightly longer term topics.

For the slightly longer term topics, typing doesn't seem to be an issue. I don't really need to say "grenade" over leader. Over TS yes, but not leader. TS is more configurable (whisper lists for large outfits with multiple squads, and yes, I know you can set up custom channels via in game VOIP) and better quality.

I definitely do not ignore leader, but equally, I definitely don't want to listen to it. So, I type on leader and talk on TS. Works for me, works for the outfit part of.

So in other words, the stuff in team speak is mostly tactical while the stuff in command chat is strategic.

Yep, exactly. That's why (for me) listening to leader isn't so important, and typing leader chat seems to work just fine. Hence, no issue with muting leader.

The problem with voice coms on leader chat is it's all grouped into one. I know this is supposed to encourage platoons to work together but it in the end it groups 3 conts into one voice com channel. This means half or more of what you hear is pointless. Take this and add it to some of the things like outfit ts, platoon coms, squad coms, and some servers have coalition ts, it's info overload. You could spend half your time just trying to make sense of it.

As far as clarity is concerned it's great quality. As far as efficient, the in game voip is horrible for anything other then small squad or pug platoon. This is why lots of outfits still have a TS server.

Leader chat is also a group of people that half don't know what the hell they are doing. Anyone can cert it easily. To be honest Command rank and exp was one of the things PS1 did right. You had to work for command chat. It's just too easily accessible to be that useful.

When someone speaks in platoon, everyone in each squad sees it and can quickly switch from broadcasting to listening.

When someone speaks in squad, all proximity voice users can stop talking and listen.

When someone speaks in command, only up to 4 people out of up to 48 can see this, everyone else can't and they don't know the leaders are listening to multiple voices, so they just keep speaking.

One solution is to tell people to stay quiet in the platoon (but then by the time they can speak, the Sundy they wanted to tell me about is already deployed and protected, so it's no longer a trivial target), the other is to mute /leader voice.

In fact when trying to seriously coordinate, orders have to be written down so everyone can see, read and have the ability to go to chat and check them later on if they have to.

...sure, BUT, it's a game, and meant to be fun. Is there really a need to "seriously coordinate". On the server I play, we're usually ok with something along of the lines of "XXX outfit coming to Esamir, we're heading south", and the like. That's not to hard to coordinate on leader text chat (and is written down anyway, since it's on leader text chat). We've had no problems with this comparatively simple coordination. On the server I play, last Saturday night, VS caped Esamir and Amerish simultaneously, so this super simple coordination seems to work fine.

Unfortunately, coordination doesn't really matter now. The strategic gameplay is pretty much a cert-grinding zergfest. Until the pace of base capping slows, bases actually matter, and the hex map isn't complete chaos (Higby's own words; the strategic game is just, chaos), there's little incentive to even bother as long as we've got a farm.

Still, I know Vanu on Mattherson use it, though we happily bash people who go on-and-on ad nauseum on it. We have our own TS or Mumble to deal with. Those voice comms need to be short and sweet, and text is quite preferable for anything that isn't time-sensitive.

The trouble is that Voice command chat is not a suitable tool for the job that it is trying to do.

And I admit that when I am leading a squad I ignore it and I will continue to do so. The reason? I already have many people speaking into my ear on our outfit teamspeak and if we're doing joint ops I can be logged onto 2 or three teamspeak instances at the same time - believe me that gives you a headache.

And this is even though when we are doing joint-ops we have ts discipline. Joint ops TS comms is very short and sweet and limited to status reports. Anything else is too much to cope with. The public voice command cannot have this discipline so we never use it.

In addition to this, many people have their voip turned off because of proximity spammers.

From my point of view the main problem with the text chat is that it does not persist. If someone writes anything useful it has probably disappeared before you have read it and you will never know what was said - so this again is not used. I also have a problem with the qualification for accedss to it being limited to squad leaders.

The final point of course is that command chat on PS1 did work and the essential difference to text /leader chat was that once you qualified to access it you had access permanently and the upshot if this was that people got to know other people on the chat - it was far more social and folk worked out who was sensible and who wasn't etc etc.

Leader chat on Mattherson used to be filled with a bunch of people who wanted to work together. Now everyone just ignores the use of voice and text

I dont always lead a platoon, but when I do I am sure to ignore command chat.

Oh wait, I refused to spend 100 certs to hear a bunch of old ladies complaing about how their outfit is the best and everyone else is useless.