http://dbd.game/killswitch
Voice Chat in DBD
It has been stated by developers that you want your game to meet industry standards, the only way I can see you achieving this is if you implement voice chat … instead of changing the colours of perks and items or whatever else it is you're doing.
I see people say they don't want communications in DBD because of toxicity, so I say you should make it a toggle - this allows people who don't want it, to be able to opt out without limiting those who do want it to just sitting in silence playing this game in the most boring way possible. I should be allowed to choose for myself if I want to speak to my teammates in this team-based game. Not have people who are afraid of toxicity deciding for me.
Im sorry but this is the real world, people are mean. You can't say you dont want comms because you're scared of being talked sh**** to, so you opt out, and let everyone else actually have fun in their games cooperating with the teammates, giggling screaming and shouting at each other. That is what gaming is for. Not to be sat there silently moping because people cant communicate with their team and tell them what's going on or what the plans are.
Also another issue I see arising without voice communications are unnecessary buffs to survivor, making the killer role more miserable than it already is, forcing more slugging and more unfun play styles. What I mean is: Without comms, survivors have no way of coordinating when they're being camped and tunnelled, something nobody enjoys, and there are ideas to add base-kit precautions and buffs to survivor to stop this from happening, but that will lead to killers not even attempting to hook because hooking will have more downsides for the killer and put them in an even more detrimental situation.
Adding comms resolves so many issues it's unbelievable why anyone would argue against having VC. At this point I think people are too comfortable being afraid of human interactions. I see no reason to not have VC as a toggle at least. This way everyone is happy, OPT out if you're that bothered about being called trash likeeeee
I play as a 4man on discord or party chat and yes we get rolled sometimes but we have so much fun, and then I play a solo q game and my teammates are in their own worlds making games miserable. Imagine if I could tell Leon to stop stealthing and get on a gen, or to come unhook me whilst the killer leaves to go main……..
It's crazy how one little thing could drastically change your game for the better and yet you have no talks on implementing it.
Comments
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Could you provide the industry standard that requires voice chat?
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So we're living under rocks?!
-6 -
So you're saying you cannot direct the person to any documentation to back up your statement?
Also, toggling VC is an awful idea, if 3 out of the 4 are on comms and the other survivor isn't, you know the other survivors are going to BM that one person, right?11 -
if they do that they have to giga nerf survivors across board permanently since swf comms destroy killer gameplay
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Adding voice chat doesn't solve any of those problems. Even in the other games that have voice comms, they aren't the thing that facilitate communication, the systems underneath voice comms that provide passive and active information to players are what facilitate communication.
In order for voice comms to fix the issues stemming from lack of communication in a given match, the following bullet points must be true:
- Everyone in the match must own a microphone
- Everyone in the match must feel comfortable speaking into that microphone to strangers
- Everyone in the match must speak the same language
- Nobody in the match can have serious noise pollution that would require them being muted
- Nobody in the match can be toxic or just broadly irritating enough to warrant them being muted
If ANY of those bullet point requirements aren't met, voice comms don't allow you to communicate with your team. It's just not how things work- too many people think voice comms are what separate solo queue from SWF, when just having an active mic connection to three other random people doesn't guarantee literally anything, let alone genuine noticeable improvements to communication and strategy.
This game should work on better information gain and communication options where possible, but voice comms isn't it.
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Except that the strength of SWF is not Comms but filtering out bad teammates. And random Voice Chat in DBD does not change that.
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I disagree. The point of voice chat in my eyes is to make it so survivor doesn't get any more basekit buffs which will promote slugging and hard tunnelling. Comms are used in Comp setting and people do just fine.
Also no. I'm saying it's 2025 and every multiplayer game has comms. He wants the norm, the norm is voice chat.
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Language would be a huge barrier. A chat wheel or what not would be easily translatable to each person's preferred language.
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Play in a call of duty lobby and tell me that! People from all over the EU speaking different languages still manage to find a way to communicate. And a chat wheel just isnt enough in this day and age im sorry.
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Everyone doesn't need a mic, if they do, get one, they're cheap as chips these days.
If you dont feel comfortable communicating with strangers why are you playing a multiplayer game?
Every doesn't speak 1 language in every other game and everyone does just fine.
If someone wants to mute someone that is entirely their decision.
if someone is toxic, again the mute option is always there and accessible.
None of these are good enough reasons unfortunately.
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Being comfortable speaking to strangers should NOT be a prerequisite for playing a multiplayer game.
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If you're scared of social interactions go play a solo story game or something then what lmao. I hate playing multiplayer games when my teammates dont have mics like if I wanted useless teammates I would load up unranked siege.
-13 -
Whenever this suggestion has been brought up the response has always been both the language barriers and the availability of options like Discord and built-in comms most consoles come with.
Imo they just don't want the moderation nightmare adding comms directly in would be, but that's just my take.
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The only way they should add proximity chat is for the killer so I can whisper creepy things to the survivors while I'm chasing them.
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So, rapid fire a few unavoidable ones that there's no discussion on - not everyone can afford a mic and nor should they be expected to, speaking to strangers is not CURRENTLY a requirement for THIS multiplayer game, and if you mute someone the voice comms are now no longer doing their job of exchanging information you need. There's nothing to say one way or another on these points, so I'll move on.
The main thing I want to point out is this invoking of "other games". As I already laid out, in other games, it's not voice comms that overcome the language barrier. Those games "do just fine" because of everything else they do to facilitate information.
The language barrier was a big problem back when I played Overwatch, approximately one thousand years ago when that game was newer. It was extremely common for the lobby to contain multiple people who did not speak the same language as me, and in many cases even as each other. However, in Overwatch, the following things are also true:
- You can see your teammates' position at all times, through walls
- You can bring up your teammates' health and ultimate charge with the press of a button
- You can use a quick-comm ping wheel that doesn't rely on sharing a language to work
- You can rely on your characters' passive voice lines to call out important information (EG, "there's a sniper", as the biggest example)
- You can look at the killfeed to get an idea of what's happening
In cases where you can communicate through voice comms, that's obviously stronger. In the extremely common outcome that you can't, Overwatch had a whole suite of carefully designed mechanics to ensure you were still capable of coordinating with any teammate that's actually paying attention and who wants to coordinate with you.
Now, how does DBD stack up compared to Overwatch here? Not as bad as it used to, but the basekit mechanics here are much, much slimmer.
I'm not saying there should be one-to-one equivalents of everything I listed for Overwatch - constant aura, for instance, would be way too strong in this game - but the basic premise of "if you can't communicate via actually talking to your teammates, you should still be able to coordinate with them" does not apply here, and it should.
The game's taken steps in this direction with things like the action HUD and adding some aura/other tell to a few perks, but they need to keep walking that path to fix this problem. Hypothetically, voice comms could be a nice bonus afterwards, but they're not a substitute.
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Trouble is, Survivors on comms completely invalidate stealth Killers and stealth perks, as well as any perk that needs an element of surprise to be effective (Hubris, for example). As much as I might hate Ghostie, I don't want to see his entire play style nuked from orbit just because you want to be able to trash talk your Solo Q teammates. Survivor on comms is horrendous for game balance.
Do I sometimes wish I could tell one of the three people working on the same gen to come cross the map and save me from the hook or I'm likely to go second? I sure do. Do I wish my teammates would pay attention to the HUD, see that the person who went for the unhook got intercepted and is now in chase and that the person on the lowest progressed gen should now go for the save? Yep. Do I wish I could tell the newbie Bill not to unhook me in the Killers face unless I'm about to go to second stage? Absolutely.
The thing is, Survivors don't need communication to avoid these situations. They need to develop game sense. Something the bare bones tutorial doesn't even attempt to teach to newer players. A chat wheel could be helpful, but a tutorial that actually taught you the basics of playing the Survivor role would be even better.
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I have no interest in CoD. I prefer horror/zombie games. But as a female gamer, I have no interest in being insulted every game just because I'm a woman. Same garbage would happen to every other marginalized group. No thanks.
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I’m in favor of having an optional voice chat (VC). On one hand, there are players cooperating via VC outside the game, while on the other, some are playing solo, so it seems the overall game balance isn’t quite working. If that’s the case, then perhaps the game should be balanced from the beginning with VC in mind. However, if we go that route, it would make it even harder for killers to win under the current conditions, so the entire system would need to be re-evaluated. And that raises the question—can such a rework even be done within the current game system?
It sounds far-fetched, but if this game ever gets a sequel, such balancing might become possible. That said, there are many situations where players can't communicate via VC. Some may feel uncomfortable speaking out loud around others, while others may struggle with voice communication due to conditions like stuttering. Text chat is one possible solution (as seen in other asymmetric PvP games), but it’s still difficult to expect everyone to use it effectively.
In any case, I believe the VC needs to be considered thoroughly and over the long term.
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There is just no real benefit in having a voice chat, but there are several issues with voicechat in games in general. HUD didnt make thing better cause players are just bad or ignorant. And as long as we dont even get proper controls and audio settings I never ever want to see voicechat included.
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What I really want in this game is someone installing themselves as the leader and constantly telling me, a stranger, what to do. That sounds great. And when I mute them or don't listen, they sandbag me. Also fun.
This, big time. I played a lot of deathmatch in the PS3 era when less women were visibly gaming and I'd enter a lobby, talking to my friends, only to get peppered with creepy or nasty remarks. I don't want to go back to having teenage boys telling me to make them a sandwich.
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As fun as I would have using VC, I know Im in the minority and understand why many dont want it.
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What if players had walkie talkies with predetermined messages that could be selected and then shown to all survivors? Similar to using emotes, they'd have one where it brings up the walkie talkie and then they can somehow select the message or use an auto talk feature that gets data from the game and converts it into a message? Like saying "The Killer heading towards Shack" or "I'm going for the unhook".
Something like that wouldn't be hard to script and since communication is lacking in solo q, this would be a great way to implement better communication without having to add voice chat where someone could say some offensive things that then the devs would need to figure out how to better monitor (Call of Duty using AI on voice comms for example. It would be costly and take a long time to implement).
The issue for solo q is that even though we have icons next to our names saying what we are currently doing, there isn't a system in place to say what we plan to do next or update what is happening (like killer is chasing me towards shack). A walkie talkie system with one button press that takes in variables from the match, even if it just says "Near Shack" while the player icon shows they are in chase would be enough. I'm sure the devs can figure out something along those lines. Most games have something similar. It's not performance heavy, could take about a month or two to fully implement, then another month or so of testing and refining before adding to the game as a whole.
The game uses Unreal Engine 5 so they can use a combination of blueprint and c++. I don't see why they can't do something like this. No aura reading, no perk, just adding a small message box in the top left or top right corner, press a new emote button and let the script do the calculation and present a message to all teammates. I think it could work.
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Though I think this idea is fun, I also think it would clash with the characters themselves. They're from all around the world. I've always assumed they communicate with different language. I actually love that aspect, of thinking that one reason they use gestures is because they are unable to understand each others languages, and walkies would kill that.
There's also already a lot to pay attention to, and you're likely to get crows or have a Michael go tier 3 or something while standing there interacting with your walkie.
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When players ask for VC, they don't seem to realise that what they're actually asking for is for DBD to be a different game. They don't seem to understand how many Killer powers, perks and add-ons would need full reworks, how many Survivor perks and items would become essentially redundant (because a co-ordinated team on comms gets everything they have to offer for free) or how much more Killers would actually need to be buffed to be viable against better co-ordinated Survivor teams. Plus, there are strategy and gameplay considerations. Consider this, how could Trapper hide a sneaky trap nearby a hooked Survivor to catch the unhooker if VC was a thing? He couldn't, because the Survivor on hook would be able to warn their teammates about it.
DBD is meant, in part, to replicate the experience of being in a horror movie. You're really not supposed to know where the Killer is or what surprises they might have in store for you. The Killer role is designed to be able to take advantage of a better understanding of the current state of the game (hence why they can see gens, hooks and exit gates without perks, while the Survivors cannot). Perfect Survivor communication completely destroys that.
I know I'm going to be down voted for saying all this, but it's clear to me that the game was never designed for VC to be a thing. Adding it now would necessitate fundamental changes to the game's design. I'm not saying Solo Q would suddenly be on the level of an experienced SWF if it had comms (it wouldn't), more that it would throw balance out the window to the degree that so many things would need to be changed the game would become a substantially different one.
At that point, you may as well just build a new game from the ground up.
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Problem is DBD is game you arent sopossed play with voice chat. If devs add it then every b-tier killer would need some serius buff because survivors on coms is one of strongest things in this game with s-tier killers, things like stealth and traps would have small value because everybody would knew where killer or his traps are.
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even bad teammates or noobs can listen to basic directions like killer is there or do gen and the ui enhances that further.
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we both know this is a lie since they'll get this and still complain
also right now i because i don't have a way to communicate with teammates despite running kindred i'm not toxic the day it's added i'll be using sentence enhancers to let people know incompetent they are
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Usually these types of posts start to turn heated so I'm going to come in straight away to say we have no plans to add voice chat whatsoever, so it's extremely unlikely it will ever come into DbD.
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NO, voice coms should never be a forced thing there's plenty of people that just don't like it and it can potentially bring a whole mess of problems. If any it should be a simple system in game like some sort of quick chat with pre built messages and or voice lines.
HellDivers 2 imo has done it best. It does have its own voice coms, but I've never once heard anyone use it cause the characters you play as are already so good calling out their actions to others. Throwing grenade! Hell bomb actived, clear the area! Calling down "object"! I need stims! Reloading! Last reload! etc, etc, etc.
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I do understand why some people want it. But in a game that is actually really sound dependent, I think it would be more of hindrance. Not sure if you ever played VHS but if not, go and check out some streamer videos. Watching Dowsey play VHS back in the day is what turned me off the prospect of proximity chat. The amount of people who just LOVE the sound of their own voice and would make sure you heard every little scream they let out or every single thought that crossed their mind was mind boggling. Sure, you could have an option to turn it off but then you run the risk of copping the ire of your team mates.
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You just have to look at the FT13 game to see how bad of an idea this is.
Screaming, loud music blaring, maybe insults, but mostly radio silence because everyone turned it off.
That's what will come alongside voice chat.
Side note: I agree that the colors were OK before.
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There seems to be a misunderstanding. I don't want to trash talk, I just want to communicate like I do in every other team based game. Trash talk is funny though, except still not my reason for wanting VC.
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Fair enough, sorry if I misunderstood your intentions. But even if you don't plan to trash talk, you at least seem to acknowledge that some people definitely will. Which means players will probably be muting each other quite frequently and at that point, what's even the point of having it? Plus there are all those other game balance considerations that I mentioned. I honestly think if the game had VC from the start, it would have developed into a very different one altogether.
Besides, since you SWF in a discord and BHVR are totally fine with Survivors that do so, you've already solved this problem for yourself. Adding VC isn't really necessary because players can already party up on comms if that's how they want to play. Could BHVR do things to improve communication between solo Survivors (especially around perks like Deliverance)? Sure. But imperfect communication is just a part of the Solo Q experience in my opinion and kinda what you sign up for when you queue for a game.
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It has a big impact on the game when I play with my surviving friends in voice mode, and yes, it also feels a bit like cheating because it's much easier to play against the killer and you can exchange all the information. And if I feel like playing a killer round, I don't want to feel like I'm always playing against a swf every round. Therefore a good decision by the developers 👍️
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Whenever I'm playing games and someone has audio feedback or is being annoyingly toxic, I mute them and carry on playing with everyone else. And I use discord when im in a pre-made swf. Load up a solo q game after playing with a 4 man on comms and you begin to understand why I think comms is a necessity for DBD. Otherwise surv keeps getting buffed to compensate for the lack of info/excessive tunnelling camping and killers will begin to slug everyone out for the win rather than playing for hooks.
to me it's either give surv comms or implement unnecessary buffs/mechanics that promote even sweatier gameplay that everyone will cry about. For some reason everyone wants the latter. Beyond me.
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