Whats wrong with public MP?

[Flugkuchen]

Hello there,

 

i am pretty new to IL-2 GB but i noticed that public MP is kind of strange to me, probably one of the strangest MP experiences i have ever made in a simulation game.

The MP missions require teamwork, communication, patience and a bit of knowledge about at least one plane to tke off without causing havoc at your airfield, everything what a IL-2 GB MP tutorial will tell you on YT but in reality interestingly nobody cares, there is no communication, no teamwork and also no patience at all.

The only good conversation i had in public IL-2 MP was about wich collector planes are worth it and wich not, it seems like everyone is flying randomly, no communication where enemys where spotted, no answers to questions, no escort requests or teamup with other players in general.

 

New players come and go frequently and only few seem to be interessted in winning the mission.

Many players have absolutely no patience at all, starting and landing on a airfield is sometimes just pain since nobody cares about your landing or takeoff requests, yes some even skip taxi and start takeoff where their plane spawned.

 

Where are all the enemy planes?

I flew at low alt - nothing, i flew at 3km - nothing, i flew at 6km - nothing, maybe i have to train my spotting skills a bit but in the time i played public MP i only got shot down once when i played on the 1C official server, i survived every expert server i visited with empty fuel tanks and no visual contacts except friendly planes.

Also everyone seems to play fighters only and the teams are mostly unbalanced (allies 30, axis 50).

 

How do you play/enjoy public MP, are there any hidden populated servers wich i overlooked?

Edited October 27, 2021 by Flugkuchen

[ShamrockOneFive]

I'm assuming you were on what is currently the more popular server which is Finnish Virtual Pilots? That server has a series of objective areas with marked frontlines and objective names. If your mission is a combat air patrol and you're looking to run into enemy aircraft, those objectives are the most likely places to run into people. That server even has flashing numbers from forward observers telling you that there are enemy aircraft within a radius (I'm guessing its about 10km) of that observation point.

 

The text chat is not a great place to try and find team-ups. Some people don't listen in on the text chat and, yes, lot of people do fly solo (not a great experience but it's what they do). Others are likely on the server Discord or on a private Discord and flying teamed up that way.

 

I fly about half of my time as fighters and half of my time as attackers/bombers and I'll usually do that with a group. So those folks are out there. I've documented many of my experiences here if you're interested in reading. Most of them are multiplayer experiences (but some are solo): https://stormbirds.blog/category/flight-journal/

Edited October 27, 2021 by ShamrockOneFive

[CountZero]

Its 2021, if your not on some voic coms you are invisable in MP, untill you type what you need wont or what not, thing that happend is past.

Also this is fighter planes game, so no suprise its like that in MP.

[JimTM]

While there are some players who prefer to fly alone and do their own thing, I think there are other players that would like to join a group and accomplish a  mission task, but may find it hard to do so or are hesitant to do so for one reason or another. It's particularly difficult for bombers and ground attackers because not only do you need to organize an attack group but you may also need some kind of substantial escort for a successful strike.

 

Sometimes you get invited to join a pick-up flight or you happen to be around when someone organizes a flight, but most times you need to be assertive and ask if anyone wants to fly together. One difficulty though is that individual people and organized groups may be on different communication channels and using different communication methods (e.g., Chat, Discord, SRS, TeamSpeak) although I think SRS is becoming the preferred method due to good support from servers like Combat Box. 

Some good solutions to the issue are organized events and formal or informal squadrons that fly together regularly, but some players cannot make a commitment and prefer to fly pickup missions on open servers. It would be nice to have some sort of built-in list of open slots that a flight leader could create and people could click to join a flight. Maybe another solution would be to have some standard communication channels such as "Ground Attack & Escort" and "Fighter CAP" (even a few versions of each in case one gets congested), but I'm not sure how effective this was for servers that have tried it.

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by JimTM

[SCG_Tzigy]

SRS is the best.  I wish more people would use it on regular basis

[BluesmanSF]

Boomer here. What’s SRS and why it might be better than Discord, or is it already? Is it already more popular?

 

Thanks in advance!

[SCG_Tzigy]

SRS is free radio chat that works amazingly well. checkout combat box server

 

the instructions can be found here

 

 

[Flugkuchen]

4 hours ago, CountZero said:

Its 2021, if your not on some voic coms you are invisable in MP, untill you type what you need wont or what not, thing that happend is past.

Also this is fighter planes game, so no suprise its like that in MP.

 

Yes voice chat, why is there no voice chat in IL-2?

 

Not really, the game mode means dogfight meanwhile its tvt and coop based, if you dont play or support ground attacker or bomber your team loose the mision, it's just funny that 50% of the server pop just dont care and ruin the game experience for others wich are interested in winning the mission, i think there should be a true dogfight mission/servers wich only focusing on fighter dogfight gameplay and the current mission/servers wich focusing on tvt and coop gameplay, the current state of IL-2 public MP is not fun and kind of broken.

[DD_Crash]

I would advise joining a squad.

[Halon]

I have to admit I do unfortunately conform to that solo-player stereotype in some respects these days. I've tried SRS and Discord a couple of times but with little success, I tend to fly solo but am happy to join a group when the opportunity arises. I rarely fly fighters though, almost exclusively fly the Peshka at the moment and am enjoying a good run of not being killed which has hopefully meant I've made a bigger impact on the front line on Finnish than a solo Fighter might.

 

I've tried a squadron before (Tangmere Pilots, very friendly, knowledgeable and highly recommended) but life got in the way with children, house move and a new job but in my short time with them it certainly made my MP experience infinitely more rewarding.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Random multiplayer is what name says you can have good coordination or not , pilot intrested in objectives and roles or not. It's there.  If you want something solid you need to participate in organized events and start flying in virtual squadron.   

[CountZero]

10 hours ago, Flugkuchen said:

 

Yes voice chat, why is there no voice chat in IL-2?

 

Not really, the game mode means dogfight meanwhile its tvt and coop based, if you dont play or support ground attacker or bomber your team loose the mision, it's just funny that 50% of the server pop just dont care and ruin the game experience for others wich are interested in winning the mission, i think there should be a true dogfight mission/servers wich only focusing on fighter dogfight gameplay and the current mission/servers wich focusing on tvt and coop gameplay, the current state of IL-2 public MP is not fun and kind of broken.

who cares who wins missions in24/7 servers, you spend 3-4h a day going for objectives and moving fronts just so in low population time some grinder shows up and 5v1 removes all the effort that is done on servere in prime time when teams were having fair fights... public 24/7 servers are just prctice and mindless df.

Only time i put effort into objectives is when you have set times when missions are played, like we had in coop wars in il-2 1946, i then know that my effort will not be wasted. To me its comical that someone is considering going for objectives on 24/7 servers, its waist of their time and effort doing something like that in not controled enviroment, its hard to take them seriously.

Most just use DF servers to practive their team team work, privet stats farming or recrutments... no serious play hapends on 24/7 df servers, its just stats pading.

 

also servers have their own voic optins, if voic is build into game it would be bigger lag fest then its now, so 3rd party options are used, if player is just using chat and he claims he wonts team work in this time and age its hard to belive it, he is usealy considerad to be troll or not usefull or just something that can be used as bait for guys who are teamplaying on ts3, discort or srs and so on... basicly they are just distraction.

Edited October 28, 2021 by CountZero

[von_Tom]

1 hour ago, Halon said:

 

I've tried a squadron before (Tangmere Pilots, very friendly, knowledgeable and highly recommended) but life got in the way with children, house move and a new job but in my short time with them it certainly made my MP experience infinitely more rewarding.

 

Sort yourself out then, and come back!  Mind you, I'd want words about liking the Pe-2...

 

 

For the OP - as a solo pilot, unless you want to do attack runs using very flanking approaches, and knowing that a lot of the time you'll be intercepted on the way back home, you can either fly as a solo behind the lines and stick with other friendly aircraft you see, or for giggles do some bottom feeding by flying very low around points of interest.

 

Edit:  The best option is to find like-minded people to fly with, and on comms together.  It doesn't matter what you like, there will be some squads out there for you.

 

von Tom

Edited October 28, 2021 by von_Tom

[ShamrockOneFive]

11 hours ago, Flugkuchen said:

Yes voice chat, why is there no voice chat in IL-2?

 

Keep in mind that the 1CGS team is comprised of about 30 people spread out over programming/artist/3D model designer and so forth. This is a very small team and either licensing or implementing a VOIP technology into the sim is both time consuming and/or potentially an expense that they may not be able to afford or if they do it comes at the expense of some other key feature.

 

So they did the next best thing which was work with a utility that already exists - SRS.

 

 What we do need to do is encourage more people to use it. I've got an editorial on that coming out shortly.

[357th_KW]

Just as an example, I was flying on Combat Box yesterday by myself.  I made a few SRS calls trying to ID potential targets near an enemy objective, and ended up joining up with a teammate who was also on SRS.  We ended up getting in a few good fights and getting some kills, but we were both eventually shot down.  We respawned together and as we were starting engines I saw a group of 4 P-38s taking off.  I called on SRS, and got a reply from one of them - they were on their way to go attack a target.  We escorted them.  Sure enough, when we got to the target a couple sneaky Germans were lurking in the clouds preparing to drop on the attackers.  In the end the P-38s took out the target with only one loss, and we got both of the interceptors.

 

Teamwork absolutely exists in MP - get on SRS as well as server discord’s and find some folks to work with.  It doesn’t always work, but often you’ll find someone to at least pair up with

[[CPT]Crunch]

Best is running dual comms, open general channel to get the overall picture, than a private channel with your wingman and element if you have one when the fights on.  Get more than four on a channel during a fight and its nothing but confusion any way.  Best is active communications with a trusted wing who understands how to fight as a pair, you really don't require anything else, there is nothing better than that.  The only thing more dangerous is two pairs who understand teamwork opposing you.

18 hours ago, Flugkuchen said:

 

The MP missions require teamwork, communication, patience and a bit of knowledge about at least one plane

  But of course you already understand that, you need to bring those things yourself, find a good wingman or two, or be one, nobody's going to do that for you.

[SharpeXB]

50 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

So they did the next best thing which was work with a utility that already exists - SRS.

 

My guess is that SRS is too complicated for most people to bother with installing. So it doesn’t get used. Discord was just fine and people have it already installed for other games. I’ve tried SRS in DCS but nobody seems to use it.

18 hours ago, Flugkuchen said:

Where are all the enemy planes?

This is the basic problem with flight sim MP. A big map, with only a few players and silly missions which have the targets scattered randomly all over the map. Add to this the fact that you can only easily see another plane within a few km The result of this is that the players will never see one another. You could orbit one of your own targets looking for puffs of AA fire and still not encounter an enemy plane for 30-40 minutes. MP is just really not a good use of gameplay time IMO

29 minutes ago, VBF-12_KW said:

 It doesn’t always work, but often you’ll find someone to at least pair up with

Yeah when it happens, which is rare, it’s cool. But it rarely happens…

[ShamrockOneFive]

13 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

My guess is that SRS is too complicated for most people to bother with installing. So it doesn’t get used. Discord was just fine and people have it already installed for other games. I’ve tried SRS in DCS but nobody seems to use it.

Maybe right. Although it's no more complicated than say TrackIR software or OpenTrack or any of the other utilities that folks run to get their sim up and running but it is just one more thing. And there are days where I've forgotten to start it up.

 

As for nobody using it. That's not always the case. It's dependent on both the server supporting it (beyond just turning it on) and on the community to take advantage of it. The other night I was on a popular DCS server, Georgia at War, and not only were multiple flights all on frequency but we were also working with a human GCI to direct the battle (detailed here: https://stormbirds.blog/2021/10/26/flight-journal-spooky-hornet-flight-on-georgia-at-war/). It's a VERY good experience and it's part of why I'm excited about what Air Marshal might be bringing to the table.

[SharpeXB]

21 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

Although it's no more complicated than say TrackIR software or OpenTrack or any of the other utilities that folks run to get their sim up and running but it is just one more thing

Eh it’s got a whole page of instructions… TrackIR or any other program is click “Install” and that’s it. SRS is rather cool though. But It’s probably too much work for most people. 

[PB0_Roll]

The only thing that got me going into SRS is when I wanted to play on servers that enforced its use. I still find it mostly cumbersome, but in DCS indeed, with a human GCI it's pretty nice to have.

[56RAF_Stickz]

7 hours ago, VBF-12_KW said:

Just as an example, I was flying on Combat Box yesterday by myself.  I made a few SRS calls trying to ID potential targets near an enemy objective, and ended up joining up with a teammate who was also on SRS.  We ended up getting in a few good fights and getting some kills, but we were both eventually shot down.  We respawned together and as we were starting engines I saw a group of 4 P-38s taking off.  I called on SRS, and got a reply from one of them - they were on their way to go attack a target.  We escorted them.  Sure enough, when we got to the target a couple sneaky Germans were lurking in the clouds preparing to drop on the attackers.  In the end the P-38s took out the target with only one loss, and we got both of the interceptors.

 

Teamwork absolutely exists in MP - get on SRS as well as server discord’s and find some folks to work with.  It doesn’t always work, but often you’ll find someone to at least pair up with

thanks by the way - especially for taking down the 190s (we actually "lost" another when his game crashed half way back). Sorry if I was buggering up your comms I kept getting mixed between talking to you on SRS and squad on teamspeak.

[Guest deleted@134347]

The game doesn't allow for a spontaneous squad creation.

 

- You either need to be a member of a club (Discord), or better a member of 20 or 30 clubs so you have at least some chance of flying with someone when you have time to play. But not a lot of folks want to deal with the club mentality, as it's either overly strict/scheduled/feels like work, or extremely open, which inevitably brings out the personalities that are hard to deal with.

- Or you need to be part of the global voice room, i.e. SRS, which is just one voice room.. so most people shy away from broadcasting themselves to everyone's listening.

 

The only thing left is the Team Chat, and that's not an effective tool to organize anything. You can get couple of folks interested in going with ya, but after 5-10 mins of typing folks get annoyed and drop off.

 

It's the age old story of the flight sims.

[Charlo-VR]

To add to all of the above, those of us who fly in VR find text chatting much more difficult to do. SRS and Discord (Discord is much more popular on the Finnish server) is a great way to work together.

 

I mostly fly solo or with a good friend on our private Discord channel, but I am quite happy to fly with or assist a new flyer on SRS - though of course, new flyers tend to only use chat and don’t know about SRS or find it a bother

[357th_KW]

6 hours ago, 56RAF_Stickz said:

thanks by the way - especially for taking down the 190s (we actually "lost" another when his game crashed half way back). Sorry if I was buggering up your comms I kept getting mixed between talking to you on SRS and squad on teamspeak.

 

Anytime!  Comms worked well other then the fact that our 6 call to your squad mate probably had to be relayed.  

[Robli]

About SRS, wasn't there an intention originally to fully integrate it to the game? Maybe some people thought that they will not bother with "beta" and will start using it when it is integrated and devs on the other hand saw that not that many people use it, so it is not worth integrating. Also newer players might not even know of it's existence, as it is not really marketed or visible feature. About voice comms otherwise, in the past there used to be always some people on official Teamspeak channels, but now it seems mostly empty, maybe because some have started to use Discord and some SRS and it has scattered player base around like that, so is actually harder to team up through voice, if you are not part of a squad.

What comes to teamplay otherwise, will be interesting to see what this Air Marshal feature will bring that is under development and how it helps to coordinate teams on MP servers. Overall, though, as some have already said, people come to play online for various reasons - some want coordinated teamplay, some play to win a mission, while not even caring of their virtual lives, some just have an hour to spare and go hunting on a server etc etc. So no matter how nice comms or Air Marhal features we will have, public servers with random players will always have many different types of players on it. If someone is mostly interested in coordinated air missions, then he should join a squad and/or participate in arranged events, instead of just joining a random MP server and hoping that everyone else there has the same goals or ideas of fun as he does.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Robli

[357th_Esco]

If you ever see me online let me know and I’ll play with you. I’m normally on discord and SRS at the same time. Sometimes you find people who would like to play together.

[Raven109]

12 hours ago, 30speed said:

The game doesn't allow for a spontaneous squad creation.

 

- You either need to be a member of a club (Discord), or better a member of 20 or 30 clubs so you have at least some chance of flying with someone when you have time to play. But not a lot of folks want to deal with the club mentality, as it's either overly strict/scheduled/feels like work, or extremely open, which inevitably brings out the personalities that are hard to deal with.

- Or you need to be part of the global voice room, i.e. SRS, which is just one voice room.. so most people shy away from broadcasting themselves to everyone's listening.

 

The only thing left is the Team Chat, and that's not an effective tool to organize anything. You can get couple of folks interested in going with ya, but after 5-10 mins of typing folks get annoyed and drop off.

 

It's the age old story of the flight sims.

 

I agree with most of your points here, but regarding SRS, you can set individual channels to deconflict your group (or several other groups) from the "global voice room". The procedure is really simple, and you can bind each channel to a different button/key on your hotas/keyboard. Pressing one button will allow you to speak to all (meaning the guys using channel 1-1), while pressing another button will allow you to speak only to the guys on the same channel you agreed on.

 

And actually, the global voice room in SRS exists only because when you usually connect you are assigned the channel 1-1 and not many bother changing it. So then all comms are on this channel.

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Raven109

[Raven109]

On 10/27/2021 at 10:34 PM, Flugkuchen said:

I flew at low alt - nothing, i flew at 3km - nothing, i flew at 6km - nothing, maybe i have to train my spotting skills a bit but in the time i played public MP i only got shot down once when i played on the 1C official server, i survived every expert server i visited with empty fuel tanks and no visual contacts except friendly planes.

Also everyone seems to play fighters only and the teams are mostly unbalanced (allies 30, axis 50).

What works for me is to judge which are the most relevant ground positions and either attack them, while staying fast (this will attract defending fighters), or go CAP above the friendly ground positions, or along the routes from enemy airfields to the friendly targets. Sooner or later someone will come for them. 

 

Some servers show a red plane marker on the map next to an objective where the enemy is attacking. Some servers also announce the grid where a plane has been spotted by friendly ground forces.

 

I also usually check the number of players that are on the server. If there are few, then I don't really expect to find the enemy easily.

 

What I would like to see implemented on servers which simulate a rolling front line, would be some kind of automatic adjustment of the number of objectives based on the number of players. So if the server is full, all objectives can be attacked, however if the numbers fall, then the number of valid ground objectives should be reduced. So as to focus the teams on certain objectives which should lead in theory to an increased chance of meeting each other. Now, this might sound gamey, but I'd say that attacking only certain objectives can be thought of as an order from higher command, trying to focus its assets on the more important objectives. Right now, the player is both pilot and high command, he gives the orders on what to attack and he also executes - and although this is fun, it does mean that things are rather random when it comes to objectives and teamwork. Not sure if objectives can be "enabled/disabled" while the mission is running though.

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Raven109

[BlitzPig_EL]

On the very rare times when I fly on my own in the wider multiplayer world, and not on the server I host for the BlitzPigs, I will venture out alone on Finnish.  I purposely choose ground targets that are NOT the ones where most of the action is, purely as a means of survival.  I am not on during heavy use time by the European community, as I live in the US.  Generally I have no idea what is going on.  I just try to blow something important up and get away with it.  I don't use Discord as I have Teamspeak, and SMS sounds like something lude in a shady German X-rated film.  I have no desire to install a complex comms program for the odd times that I fly in the wider multiplayer world, mostly because it sounds like more work to implement than it would be worth, and frankly I don't have spare key assignments and never did get on with "push to talk" over multiple channels.

[SharpeXB]

What’s silly about SRS allowing for so many channels is that in any particular game there might only be 4-5 people using it. So they clearly don’t need all those different channels. 

[[CPT]Crunch]

Not everybody is on the same SRS server, squads don't want to be arsed with the public and its easy to set up your own private SRS channels on your own server, so your only seeing the tip of the iceberg signing on any official server.

[Pict]

On 10/27/2021 at 11:57 PM, BluesmanSF said:

Boomer here. What’s SRS and why it might be better than Discord, or is it already? Is it already more popular?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

My take on this after trying both plus Teamspeak.

 

SRS is small, light on PC recources, runs from where ever you put it, so doesn't need an installer and doesn't put any hidden extras on your machine, like registy entries, etc.

 

It is open scource software that is developed under public scrutiny on GitHub, so there shouldn't be any nasties like spyware, adware or whatever in it as this would be quickly spotted.

 

It's easy to install and just as easy to uninstal, which it does without a trace of it ever having been on your PC.

 

It doesn't ask for access to your files, nor does it require you to register an account anywhere and give out details like you email address.

 

This version is developed in conjunction with the IL2 team to work flawlessly with IL2.

 

Most of the good servers have integrated it, so that once intalled, all you need to do is join the server and SRS with connect automatically for you.

Popularity is difficult to measure, as you will only ever see who is on the server that you are on. This is good for secure comms and keeps the interface clean.

 

It's free, which is about the only thing that the other two have in common with it.

 

===============

 

Discord & Teamspeak are not just voice communications software, the offer many extras, Discord espesially is more of a social media platform than a radio system.

 

They require intallers to run and spam your system with junk that is hard to get rid of unless you're pretty switched on with that kind of thing, should you want rid of them. TeamSpeak has a thing called overwolf, that's totally unnessesary, yet it tries to get you to install it and even if you don't, there a sneaky instal button that can be pushed accidentaly duting use. Even then it puts overwolf entries in the registry. For that alone I ditched it.

 

Teamspeak doesn't require your to register but trys to get you to do so.

Discord will only function if you register with them.

 

Lots of the net generation seem to love Discord...I wouldn't thank you for it.

 

That's my take on them.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Pict

[BlitzPig_EL]

I run, and pay for, a Teamspeak server for the BlitzPigs.  We have used it for literally decades now.  It's easy, it works for us, and the only way to DL Overwolf is to click on the icon for it, which no one has ever done.  Those of our group that have tried Discord have all ditched it.  Audio quality is not as good as TS, and as Pict said, it's more a social media thing, with all the associated issues that go along with it.    TS also works for us as a way to connect to our far flung membership, even when not gaming.  We range from the west coast of Canada and the US eastward to Tel Aviv in Israel.

Edited October 29, 2021 by BlitzPig_EL

[SharpeXB]

SRS makes me ask myself. Gee do I want to spend the next several hours of my time gaming or screwing around with some add on?

usually the answer is I spend my time gaming. 
 

And I’ll just about guarantee you, if I go through the work with SRS, nobody will be on it when I go online. Because nobody knows what it is unless they dig around the forum. 

[Robli]

I also think that the biggest problem with SRS is that one would first need to find out that it even exists, then go through the setup, adding lines to some config file and run through the loops to get it running, so many people will pass. Once it is set up, it is easy to use, though, can be set to auto-connect to server that you are joining etc. At lest Combat Box also had nice features where you actually get situation updates in voice through SRS etc. If SRS was fully integrated to the game, I think it would be a lot more popular. 

 

Teamspeak has been around for a while of course and very good for comms, with lots of features, while still very clear and easy to use. It just appears that Discord has surpassed Teamspeak in popularity now, which is kind of shame as I don't see it doing anything better than Teamspeak when it comes to comms, but I guess the social media aspect of it is important to many people.

[SCG_Tzigy]

50 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

SRS makes me ask myself. Gee do I want to spend the next several hours of my time gaming or screwing around with some add on?

usually the answer is I spend my time gaming. 
 

And I’ll just about guarantee you, if I go through the work with SRS, nobody will be on it when I go online. Because nobody knows what it is unless they dig around the forum. 

You are absolutely right.  Still, imo, worth the try. It improves the online experience a whole another level when integrated like it is on Combat Box. 

 

Also, it literally takes like 10 min to set up, including reading the instructions.

 

Disappointed recent CBox numbers down overall, might be my timezone and Finnish..

[ShamrockOneFive]

I do have to ask how much setup time folks are actually experiencing with SRS.

 

I set mine up in less than 5 minutes and I haven't touched the setup since. So... 10 minutes grand total for both DCS and IL-2 versions. It's not that complex as I understood it but I fully recognize that I'm not everyone and others mileage may vary. Is this really a problem or is it perceived to a be a problem and that's why folks are not going down the route? Would a simple install guide help or some other resource?

 

To some degree we, everyone, have to take responsibility for being organized and flying as a team. If everyone says that they want to fly as a team but aren't... that's on us (in a general sense).

[Pict]

2 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

It's easy, it works for us, and the only way to DL Overwolf is to click on the icon for it, which no one has ever done. 

 

Yes that's right and Teamspeak is pretty good all up in comparison to Discord, like you say the quality is better. I used TS too for a long time and probably still would if SRS hadn't become an option.

 

I probably didn't word it right earlier, but even although I never installed overwolf, every time I started then closed TeamSpeak, there was a new overwolf entry in the registry. This happened every time as I deleted it every time. That kind of thing annoys me and having SRS available, I decided to make the switch.

 

I liked the pre version 3 Team Speak, but they blocked the use of that somehow.

 

33 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

I do have to ask how much setup time folks are actually experiencing with SRS.

 

Same as you to point that I can quote you word for word. "I set mine up in less than 5 minutes"

[Raven109]

I wouldn't be too concerned about the setup process for SRS. As the other guys said you can get it up and running pretty fast, and afterwards it's more or less hands off (unless you need to set up channels for different groups - which is easy enough).

 

My concern regarding comms tools is not really about the setup process, but rather that this community has multiple ways of communicating, which to me at least it seems to fracture it to some degree while in MP. 

 

Also, @30speed has a good point here. There would be some benefit to adding some sort of GUI for creating flight groups. Perhaps some are familiar with this from Post Scriptum or from Squad: someone who wants to be a Squad Lead creates a squad, and other players join it. (The incentive to join a squad is to pick up more advanced weapons/roles rather than just a rifle.) Being part of a squad means that even people who don't want to talk, are still part of a small team and at least they hear what the others are saying and improve their overall situational awareness. There is also no pressure for everybody to talk, however when everyone in the team is sharing good information, the whole team benefits as whole. Post scriptum and Squad both have in-game comms, though, which really gets you over the hassle of setting up other tools if you don't feel like it.

[357th_KW]

19 minutes ago, Raven109 said:

I wouldn't be too concerned about the setup process for SRS. As the other guys said you can get it up and running pretty fast, and afterwards it's more or less hands off (unless you need to set up channels for different groups - which is easy enough).

 

My concern regarding comms tools is not really about the setup process, but rather that this community has multiple ways of communicating, which to me at least it seems to fracture it to some degree while in MP. 

 

Also, @30speed has a good point here. There would be some benefit to adding some sort of GUI for creating flight groups. Perhaps some are familiar with this from Post Scriptum or from Squad: someone who wants to be a Squad Lead creates a squad, and other players join it. (The incentive to join a squad is to pick up more advanced weapons/roles rather than just a rifle.) Being part of a squad means that even people who don't want to talk, are still part of a small team and at least they hear what the others are saying and improve their overall situational awareness. There is also no pressure for everybody to talk, however when everyone in the team is sharing good information, the whole team benefits as whole. Post scriptum and Squad both have in-game comms, though, which really gets you over the hassle of setting up other tools if you don't feel like it.

That would be amazing if server operators had the ability to customize such a setup to encourage players to operate in groups.  Sadly I doubt we’ll see that anytime soon.  But who knows - maybe Air Marshall will include some features along those lines.