Well not only is it jarring yo simply not have it. It is vital for communication in Hazard Zone, one of the three main options at the menu that very specifically prioritizes teamwork
About adding the voice chat in-game, honestly?
While I get why some of you want it, and I fully agree that voicing is an important aspect...
...in the end, if they add it into the base game, it will not make much difference regarding the quality of the matches you'll find on open public servers.
The quality of matches in any MP game while in a public open servers has always been fairly trashy since the beginning of time, even in games where voice chat is standard. Truth is, you'd likely find that voice chat more filled with snot nosed & rude trash talk than you would find mature, focused cohesion.
It's just the mentality these days... people who join open servers/match making without first partying up do so much of the time because they just feel like having the freedom to do whatever they want instead of acting as part of a team and having to do things a certain way...so to really get the type of matches you're talking about I think you'll find in the end that you will still need to hook up on voice with other like minded players first, and then party-up, before you would even reach the in-game voice chat feature (if it ever exists, which is unlikely I think).
So, IMO...while it sounds on paper like a good idea, in reality it probably isn't...at least in this case.
After I was done grinding the specialists and weapons I liked I got hooked on Hazard Zone. You absolutely need voice or the 1st team you go against that is on discord will absolutely steamroll you...even if they're bad you'll still lose. That's any MP game. it really is that much of a determining factor. To tie it back to the scoreboard (lol), there are times where I look and see someone dominating on the other team (let's say 50-4) and that tells me to look at the killfeed and see what that person is doing. Now I can guess where he might be on the map based upon the weapon I can see he's using. Or, I can distract him so my team can advance on the point. Or, in my most personal reason (albeit rare) you can start talking with that person and become friends you'll have for over 15 years. All because you just lol'd at how good/bad they were and hit it off from there.
Obviously I care about social connections and communication in games. I also understand where some people are coming from with the toxicity concerns. I really got a lot from reading Raph Koster's (Creator of Ultima Online and Lead Design for Star Wars Galaxies) "A Theory of Fun" on game design, and he has clever ways of getting around toxicity while not cutting off social channels. His theory is that if you give the player reason to invest in his character, and reason to "belong" to your online community with enough social means of communication...you won't want to tarnish your image or "brand". I think a happy coincidence for DICE right now, is that players are more likely to be toxic if a game doesn't keep their attention, or is just bad. If a game is good, there's less people talking in general. Guarantee after the game runs smooth and less people are bitching they'll turn on VOIP. Anyway.
@BigShottt I play on XB1 with a friend who is on PS4 and party up all the time but because there's no voice chat the fun of running together on BF 2042 has been totally lost.
If you're in a group of blueberries there was always the mute button on previous BF's.
I do have an Xbox series x but hear that PC players are decimating the console players so much so that people are switching off cross play.
It's come to the point that we are now going back to playing Cold War to actually enjoy cross platform cross play.
