Most of my gaming happens on the Xbox for reasons not important to this particular rant. I sit in an Xbox live party all day but for the most part I play all chat audio through the speakers rather than the headset because then I can hear the people who are in game chat even though I'm in party chat. For most games I have a way of communicating with my teammate even though I'm too lazy or don't want to switch out of party chat; such as honking a vehicle horn, or pushing a button command to voice what you want to do. Battlefield 3 can be played effectively without even using a microphone. If you need ammo, health and a medic, or support unit is nearby a prompt pops up on screen saying "push (button) to request ammo/health". Your character then yells out to nearby units that he needs ammo or health. But once again, no body actually pays attention to these in-game call outs and helps each other. Medics end up running into a hail of gunfire because they don't think of why this group of teammates died in a pile and only care about getting points for revives. How I manage to have a positive win/loss ratio in that game is baffling because I can't remember the last time I won a match.
Then you have games like Army of Two, with commands that can be given and/or ignored. The D-Pad is used to give commands like "advance silently" or "hold your position and distract them". A simple push on the D-Pad or double press will tell your teammate that you either want them to push forward or hold back as support. But it is rarely ever used and if it gets used the other player is more likely to ignore it. That game requires almost no voice chat at all except there is no way to explain to your partner that you are getting flanked. But, with good teamwork you would never need to warn your teammate because you will have eliminated the opposition before they can flank you.
Lastly you have games like Medal of Honor: Warfighter where you are actually rewarded for working with your fire-team partner. Everybody has a single partner, like in Army of Two, and you can replenish both you and your partner's ammo and health when either of you take a bullet or fire one out by simply holding the reload button while facing your teammate. You get points for replenishing if enough health or ammo has been depleted before replenishing, which in turn builds up to your score streak. Also if your teammate gets a kill with you next to them, you get points for the kill without even needing to have seen the enemy. The whole multiplayer is built around you and your fire-team partner sticking together; yet if you get teamed up with some random person who is playing, they always just run into the middle of everything like it's Call of Duty and get gunned down fast. They also never bother to replenish ammo or hide behind cover when you are trying to spawn on them.
These games could be allot better for those of us who have to be paired up with people we've never met if everyone had the mindset of a teammate. Play the way you would play with your friends and everyone will benefit. Your opponents will get a well fought match rather than just steam rolling over everyone. You would also stand a chance of actually winning and even being the Most Valuable Squad or Most Valuable Group of the match.
I'm really tired of being shot in the back because the 17 people looking down the corridor can't seem to handle one person while I'm trying to watch their backs.
