Debate This: Push to Talk vs. Lag
January 3, 2009 61 Comments
Debate This is an ongoing regular feature which provides an opportunity for open discussion on various video game-related topics. Those who know how to debate in a mature and respectful manner are encouraged to participate. Present your opinion, but be prepared to defend it.
Yesterday, hidden amongst the primarily playlist-related Bungie Weekly Update, there was a tasty little tidbit pertaining to “push to talk”. A feature many Halo fanatics love to hate, push to talk allows the activiation of communication by the not so gentle pushing of the d-pad. While it previously was used with any team size larger than four, that paltry number is being increased to an impressive six in the upcoming January matchmaking update (expected to officially arrive sometime mid-month). With that convenient advancement also comes the potential for a ridiculously inconvenient downgrade: lag. From Bungie.net:
Push to Talk Restriction Increased
Since Halo 3’s release, if a player were to join a Matchmaking playlist with a team size larger than four, he or she would have to push a button on the DPad to communicate directly to their team. After the January update, the PTT restriction is being increased to 6 players per team, meaning that players will not need to use the D-pad to communicate on any Matchmaking playlist but Social Big Team.
What does this mean for players? Well, for starters, it means communicating to teammates in 5v5 or 6v6 playlists will be trivial. However, this could mean an increase in bandwidth necessary for these larger format playlists, which means the potential for “laggy” games is increased. The best way to avoid lag in these games is to ensure that you are not constantly broadcasting to your teammates, and that your teammates are not constantly broadcasting to you. If you often play with strangers, be prepared to mute and report players that abuse their microphone.
As someone that has a particular distaste for pushing to talk, this announcement brings a myriad of mixed feelings. Will it make it easier to communicate pertinent game information to my teammates? Absolutely. Will it be worth the benefits when it’s coupled with the addition of increased lag? In my opinion, probably not. Obviously nobody will know the specifics of the dreaded lag until this update is officially introduced into the matchmaking system, but let’s go ahead and duke it out. Debate This: Is the PTT restriction being increased to six players per team worth the potential lag it may possibly bring with it?
*A special thank you to DethPwn, who’s clearly a brainiac and will probably pwn your ass in this debate, for the new feature idea!
I hate lag more than Push to Talk.
No it’s not worth it.
lag is just so awful
I’d rather keep the Push-to-talk limit as it is rather than increase it. I get laggy games sometimes, even when the PTT future is activated.
I of course ment ‘feature’. I request an edit function!
Well, they’ve tried it in restricted testing. Obviously eventually you need to test it in matchmaking.
I hope it will work well.
the lag isn’t worth it.
I lag as it is with my xbox in my basement and my computer upstairs, I don’t need any help.
:)
Lag is the absolute worst thing. Moreover, I actually like push to talk, it allows me to let my mic on all the time and reduce drastically the number of people shouting and breathing heavily during the game without having to mute them.
Well angel I know you hate this little feature, but if you use the XBL Party system, it pretty much does away with the PTT feature altogether. Even with a team of 8, you don’t need to PTT. Of course if you play social slayer with a full 8 party you can hear your friends plot to destroy you…..
But in a nutshell, while I despise PTT, I’d rather put up with that annoying D-Pad over excess and unnecessary lag.
i’m for this, I hate push to talk, but in big team most of us will still get in an xbox live party.
Seeing that i dont think that much more lag will actually occur i am all for getting rid of PTT. it is the single most annoying thing in halo
id rather have PTT.
lag sucks in large games as is, we dont need more.
and im already in teh habit of bushing to talk, i do it out of habit even if im in a party or chat while playing in a big team game.
it also prevents some of those annoying kids from talking as much.
I thought push to talk died a long time ago with Party Chat. Party Chat is awesome, you can continually make fun of the person who got booted for blowing up all their team mates with a grenade. Im looking at you unamed blogger.
PTT really seems like a non-issue now that there is Party Chat. I never hated PTT, but I do hate the lag.
I thought push to talk was a Nextel phone thing? J/K!
I really hate lag so this sucks
well the thing is… when regular communication is in place without PTT… its used for tactics… but when the lag comes up… all you hear is… OH MY GOD WTF?! I SHOT HIM IN THE f’N HEAD!… at least if theres lag AND PTT… random ranting doesnt always come through the headsets unless on purpose to create debate
i am pro PTT and anti LAG
I don’t mind it. I don’t run into horrible lag all that often, and I often forget to push the button, leaving my cries for help unanswered. There’s always the Good Connection preference to help cut down at the potential lag, if you don’t mind waiting an extra minute to get into a game. And who knows, the lag might not even be bad at all. Of course, everyone who still uses hamster wheels to power their internet could get an upgrade.
I can speak for many when I say that I often forget about PTT and simply call out commands to myself, which is an inconvenience. Of course, eventually I will remember to D-Pad my orders to my troops. But to replace an mere error on my part with a major annoyance and performance restriction is not worth it. Also, I agree with the party chat theory, we don’t need this change…
I hate lag, and seeing as how Halo 3 was my first online game, PTT is basically normal from me. I don’t talk anyway ( if you guys didn’t know yet), but I also don’t have many friends online, so I have never been in the party/party chats.
Basically, I don’t care how awful the talking is, as long as there is NO LAG.
I hate lag.
In my opinion, I would rather have the PTT considering that lag is just…annoying as shit…(Parden my french!)
When did normal VoIP communication ever affect lag in any modern game?
It hasn’t.
There are games on the PC where people are constantly streaming music over their “mic” through programs such as Half Life DJ, people spend entire matches in CoD4, Counter Strike, and L4D going over plans and keeping each other aware of what is going on in the game. The data that is transferred over your mic, your voice, is very small. So small that it could not possibly affect lag, unless if the game that this voice is being sent over has a poorly designed netcode and VoIP system.
Halo 3 has a poorly designed netcode. This was evident in the enormous failure that was BTB in Halo 3, where nearly every match was plagued with high latency. The bad netcode is clear in many other commonly occurring events, such as when a plasma grenade magnetizes itself to a player that was not in its trajectory or when a sniper round passes clear through a player, but does no damage.
It isn’t normal lag, it’s the result a game that has one of the worst netcodes of any modern game.
Bungie has continued to shirk away from admitting this or doing anything about it, and, instead, has been inhibiting the player’s experience through a restrictive push to talk system. I suppose that now that the Halo 3 population is smaller, they feel that they can get away with having the poor VoIP system affecting lag. Possibly, they figure that less people will notice. Maybe they are doing something about it with Halo 3: ODST and this is laying the groundwork for it. I don’t know.
Yes, VoIP can affect latency in other games, but only when under extreme stress, such as when multiple players (think 9 or 10) are playing full songs over the system all at once. A few team mates having a typical discussion will not affect latency in a game with a good netcode.
I think that if the likelihood of laggy games is increased noticeably, then PTT should be re-limited. But Bungie doesn’t work that way, they wouldn’t release such a feature unless the laggy games happened uncommonly. But they still have to say that the increase in their amount is there.
I don’t know where I stand on this. But I hate laggy games
i hate lag, i reather have PTT
From what I saw on b.net, there would only be more lag if people were using the mic more often. as long as there’s not as many people breathing into the mic and screaming withough being interrupted by PTT, it should be OK.
Personally, the PTT feature never really bothered me too much. Yes, it’s a minor inconvenience, but it’s never been a big issue for me. I know that there are many who disagree with me, but hopefully, with this PTT restriction being increased that these people will be happy…just as long as the lag caused isn’t a nuisance.
Push to talk is probably the worst advent in Halo 3. I am very happy that they increased the number to 6 from 4 because I hate it when I have a conversation with my mike when no noise is going through. Has anyone ever been in a 8v8 match with someone playing music? How about an 8v8 with people having conversations and lots of people talking the entire time? I have and I did not experience any kind of lag from these occasions. I do not think that allowing 6 people to talk constantly will create any kind of lag. Go into a six man FFA and everyone can talk to each other anyway, but no lag is created. I’m sure that the lag will not get even close to as bad as Bungie is predicting, and hopefully if this is successful they will remove PTT completely.
oops^^ that was pikmingod
I think having the limit bumped up will be a great improvement, but I don’t think the increased lag will go over well. Halo 3 is presented so directly that people expect it to be pretty darn accurate when detecting hits. It’s not so bad when lag costs you a kill, but when it happens in Halo 3, and you have those expectations, it’s a pretty big deal. I’d say just don’t expect too much of Halo 3 in the days after the update is rolled out.
I’m most puzzled by how it will create lag. I don’t have this issue with Gears in a party of 5. I don’t have the issue in CoD4 either. If everyone is in a party chat then it is still streaming the same amount of voice data. I just don’t get why this is an issue in Halo (and admittedly in UTIII which had the same lame PtT).
I dont have a mic so im against the increased lag.Ban everyone with a bad connection!
Me and all my friends use the Party system to talk while we play anyways.
So I really won’t notice. ;- ;
I don’t think it would be worth it. As much as I hate the Push to Talk, I hate lag even more.
It’s not worth the lag that will happen in games.
I’d prefer a less laggy game over less PTT, and as CrazedOne said the XBL party system eliminates this problem and i have yet to play a game on halo 3 where I haven’t used it so increasing it now seems pointless, well unless you play by yourself or in a small party.
Halo 3 always lags and no matter what it’s not going to get any less laggier. Push to talk is the worst thing to ever happen in life. I hate lag with a passion but I don’t think it’s going to make a much bigger difference. Either way it doesn’t matter much because I just party chat with my friends.
I think the game lags enough as it is. Push to Talk never bothered me. I could carry a conversation with someone in real life while I was playing Squad Battle. Now I’ll have to turn my mic off. >.<
So let’s see… if I lost pushing a button, I would gain more lag. Yay?
I’d rather have Push to Talk remained at 5 players and up.
Speaking from a programming perspective, it has the chance to highten the overall experiance. However, the push to talk was an implementation to conserve bandwith so it was easier for the players to transfer their data to the host. When bandwith limit is pushed packet loss is more frequent, a common cause of lag.
However, people with good connection speed will have the luxury of taking advantage of the update (as long as there are others in the game with good connects too).
It could be put back to normal if things begin to look like a slideshow.
I find it really funny that people are saying they’re worried about lag but are using the party chat feature. Do you think party chat doesn’t use bandwidth or something?
Tort I’ve been using the party chat feature and it doesn’t seem to affect halo 3 at all, I don’t know why, could be cos it’s written by microsoft and uses different codes and all but I’m not a programmer so I’m prob wrong or have given a basic outline of what actually happens.
What tort is saying is that party chat uses just as much bandwidth as non-PTT chat would. If one doesn’t lag out the game then the other won’t, and I agree completely.
I say, GOOD! I hated PTT.
If you’re with a buddy, but you want to play squad battle, that party chat feature isn’t going to help you. There are people who play games without a full party and still want to communicate with the “randoms” hands-free. I honestly think there won’t be as much lag as everyone thinks there will be. They shouldn’t have even said anything about lag, now everyone’s paranoid and they probably wouldn’t have noticed if they didn’t tell you :)
Zoomy, I played three games of Squad Battle over FLAG weekend and each game was constant red bar for every single player for the entirety of the game. I’m assuming things have changed behind the scenes somehow since then considering they are now offering this as a normal feature. It does make me slightly concerned though. (Btw, your cat comment on the other post was pure Zoomy gold!)
And I never use the party chat system in Halo, not because of lag but because I’m just not a fan of it for other reasons.
Bungie’s netcode is one of the best console netcodes out there. Sadly, something about consoles makes them incapable of dealing with networking as well as PC’s do.
As far as the feature goes, I think P.T.T. is somewhat moot now that the LIVE Party system is enabled. True, it does segregate the partied from the other players of the game, but I wind up muting 90% of the players I meet in the pre-game lobby anyway. If you open your mouth on XBox Live, you have about 10 words before I decide whether to mute you or not. I used to be much more forgiving, but I’m tired of all the homophobic trashtalking on Live. P.T.T. actually alleviated this because most people are too lazy to push a ‘trashtalk now’ button.
The downside of P.T.T. is a lag in team communication. I don’t know how many times I’ve been involved in a gam and I’ve been spouting off sitreps and directives to my teammates only to realize I haven’t pushed the talk button in 5 minutes. This is the point where you must way your priorities. If you value immediate team communication over the potential for meeting the rare cool new player (1 in every 60-70 games for me), then the Liv Party Chat will alleviated any problems you have. However, if you feel like you’re not being fair to the one guy on your team who you got paired up with who’s got a mic, is not slinging expletives like a monkey flings poo, and is not in your party, you have about 3 choices:
a) Shrug it off and let your conscience hash it out over a cup of joe.
b) Send them a party invite to join the rest of your team in Live Party chat.
c) End the Live Party chat and have everyone in the team be on P.T.T.
I personally opt for leaving P.T.T. where it is and making use of option b). While I was initially happy to hear about the increase of P.T.T. restrictions, I just finished playing a game where I stuck a plasma grenade to a guy’s chest and watched him walk through the explosion unscathed whilst blasting rap music through his mic. And this was only 4v4.
I must be one of the few who enjoys PTT. See, I hate stupid people. It’s one of the main things that keep me from playing Halo. By leaving PTT in, you keep a rudimentary IQ test that requires you to think before you talk. I’ll be honest; if it’s too much work or hassle to hit the button to talk, I probably don’t want to hear what you have to say. I apologise if I come off sounding like an elitist douchebag, but with the multitudes of 12 year olds and stoners (and 12 year old stoners), I’m in favor of anything that keeps a good game away from the people that ruin it…..
But that’s just my take.
I liked Tom Hanks’ post. :D
Halo 3 is laggy enough already. Plus, PTT means that you don’t hear thirty year olds living in their parents basement screaming for turkey sandwiches.
I’m not sure how heavily the increase will effect lagg; but it would be a very smart move to counterbalance this with something to reduce lagg (for people with worse internet connections – or if they are in Asia Pacific e.t.c.)
I can haz shoutout? Nah but seriously I just can’t think of my connection being any damn slower just so some crapstain can do his best Borat impression. (They always suck, BTW). Besides, I don’t know about you, but I don’t do that much excercise, and I don’t want my thumb slacking next time I do my Bill Clinton just so i can yell at bs easlier for ass-sticking me. (And I’m not fat BTW)
I am looking forward to it, but then I don’t go into games by myself.
I’ll make a judgment when I see it. I think a lot of people are jumping to conclusions when they say the game will lag. Player communication is so crappy as it is, I can’t imagine it taking up enough extra memory to cause an already light game to stall.
Either way, I cannot stand talking to my teammates for 2 minutes before I realize I had to PTT.
I’m all for the new PTT limit, ‘cuz like many posters above me, I often forget to PTT when I’m on a 5+ team, thus losing the most important aspect of any team effort: communication.
I don’t feel like it’s gonna add much lag (considering that Halo 3 has at least it’s share of laaaggg… ), and I place a high value on communication.
If, however, there is a noticable amount of added lag, I implore Bungie to revert to the old (present?) limit.
Why not just have an option to turn it on or off, ppl who think it makes it to laggy can use PTT and match up with other PTT players. People who like to have it off can do the same. Problem solved. Il take my gazillion dollars for this revolutionary idea any time bungie….
I don’t talk in games. I use the party system found in the NXE :)
I alway use the ‘Mute everybody’ feature, so that’s a non issue for me! Hooray for glorious silence :)
As someone who plays with an outstanding, top-of-the-line in the country connection, I’m going to have to say that I’d take the increase in lag over PTT.
PTT was a needless introduction put in to try and blame the voice channel for game lag. I don’t see any other game requiring PTT, I don’t see Xbox Live parties causing lag in the game, I don’t see Counter Strike or TF2 players lagging because they’re connected to both a Ventrilo and a Teamspeak server – possibly simultaneously!
Those who complain it will add to the lag must either play on dial-up, or just need something to blame when their lack of skill is evident. I’m not saying I’m the greatest player at whatever I play, but I know when my ass is getting handed to me, it the difference in skill level, not whether people are jamming up the line with voice data.
I hate lag as I do push to talk, but I hate it when I dont realize that there are 4+ players and Im talking away and after I’m done talking I relize I need to press up. I equally hate lag. I think that I would rather have a push to talk game than a laggy one. ARGG! IDK! I hate em’ both!
I think the party feature in the Guide really does solve the problem for anyone who’s really concerned about the increased lag. Just invite your friends to the party, or even the other people who you got matched up with. I think the party feature can handle eight people, so no problem there.
In my opinion, Bungie needs to find a way to integrate matchmaking chat with the Xbox LIVE Party Chat system so that way you can have a lag free chat with your teammates without your enemies hearing you even when they are within your proximity and without PTT. It would be really neat if Bungie modified chat so that when you were in a new matchmaking game it would automatically start up a Party Chat that has you and your team in it with the option to turn such a feature off just in case you’re not a fan of talking in matchmaking anyways.
As far as the lag goes you are going to run into it on LIVE constantly anyways so are the chances being increased because of the change of PTT rules? Yes of course, but it’s not like the lag can’t happen regardless of the chat settings.
~Freddy Gipson.
Um, does everyone think that the bandwidth for party chat voice is free? Does it come out of thin air? Of course not! It’s still being broadcast over the same internet connections.
A game without PTT is exactly the same bandwidth-wise as a game where everyone on each team is in party chat. The only difference is you don’t need to set it up before hand.
If people haven’t noticed a major increase in lag when in party chat, then I don’t think increasing the PTT limit will be a problem.
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Raising PTT restrictions isn’t worth it. Then again, I don’t think Halo could lag any more than it already does, so I guess it IS worth it!!!
Life would be so much simpler if there was no such thing as lag :(
Unlike open chat, the NXE Party Chat will not lag games. Most of the time. Here’s why:
The NXE Party Lag host is usually not the same person hosting the actually Halo 3 game. As such, the party’s banter has no affect on the game at large, just that one person’s bandwidth. Usually, that one person’s bandwidth can handle party chat and the game (unhosting) just fine. However, the lag is increased when the Party Chat host is ALSO the Game Host, but Bungie’s net code makes this very unlikely, since the Host is decided upon best connection detected in the pre-game lobby. If there is a Party Chat in the pregame lobby, then the player hosting that chat will have a lower ping than most people there and the game will recognize that and give Host to someone else with a better connection, effectively decreasing lag for EVERYONE, since fewer lines of player audio will be handled by the game Host and the Party Chat host will not have to deal with hosting the game.
The ONLY time the NXE Party Chat will contribute to game lag is if, for some reason, the Party Chat host still has a better connection than everyone else in the pre-game lobby. Of course, if that’s the case and everyone has a crappy connection, the game is going to lag regardless.
Truthfully, Party Chat causes less lag than open chat or Push To Talk chat.
I agree that in most cases that shouldn’t pose a major issue, but I have a crap freaking connection. I just got the jump from dial up and have the friggin’ ghettoest connec. I just can’t see pressing the D-Pad as a serious issue, aside from forgetting now and then. Besides, very few of my friends play halo, (at least not when I do), which kinda nixes the NXE option.