We have a couple people on the Discord that are unable to speak in voice chat, but they utilize the text to voice function - it just needs to be enabled and the player has to have the permissions to use it. it is not ideal though.
Yeah, but, not ideal is very much right. Setting aside my own dislike and discomfort with TSS (that's a person, me thing), The main issue is that the TTS support in 3rd party chat programs still requires screen focus outside of the game to use - so you have to constantly switch back and forth between the game, and the external program if you want to communicate using it. For some games that's just not a tenable proposition at all - especially live or real-time ones - and while that's not necessarily an issue in BG3, it's still a very big hassle, and what it ultimately results in is players that need to use such a method simply communicating less than they'd like to, because of that awkwardness. It's definitely
A solution, and I won't knock it for that, but it's not a great one, sadly... I could not, for example, imagine running a raid group using TTS - I've done that in the past using a robust combination of text chat, pings, plus a selection of pre-stored targeted whispers/tells and raid-shouts, but that's all got to come from within the game itself, for players to receive without needing extra effort on their part.
It's an interesting point to consider that a lot of folks don't think about until it comes up - When someone talks using voice, people hear it, and they process the information, no action required on their part; you can't choose not to hear something without taking active steps not to. When you communicate non-verbally, however, be that through text, or with your hands in person, that communication requires active engagement from the person you're communicating to, which they have to extend consciously to you... something that it's very east for them to simply not do, to choose not to do if they wish to ignore you, or to not even realise they need to do in the first place, and that's actually a big hurdle to overcome, just from the starting block. In pick up groups, I might say something half a dozen times, and others in the group will still be asking the question, or making other suggestions... and it's not until someone reads what I've said, and then repeats it over voice, that it's acknowledged... That's happened rather a lot, a real lot, in fact. Any tools that can help lower that hurdle are always welcome.
