i cant hear or talk to anyone

Being in Discord shouldn't affect it.

You say you're seeing the chat indicator? Is it always on or does it seem to be reacting to your voice? It should only flash on when you talk or there are sounds picked up by your mic. Even then there are some things that can affect the quality of your mic's sound. If it's always on, that means it's picking up constant noise.

Things to check (Windows 10, may be different in 11):

• In the Sound control panel (right-click the speaker icon on your taskbar and go to Sounds) under the Recording tab, right-click your desired microphone and click "Set as Default Device" AND "Set as Default Communication Device". The second one is the most important one for Sea of Thieves!

• While still here, right-click on your microphone again and go to Properties. Under the Advanced tab make sure your mic's default format is set to at least 48000Hz (DVD Quality). An update for Season 8 broke lower samplerates and I'm unsure if it's been fixed yet.

• For hearing other folk in-game, in the Sound control panel, under Playback, repeat the same "Set as Default Device" and "Set as Default Communication Device" for your headset.

• Whilst still in the Sound control panel, disable any inputs and outputs you never use.

• Windows can sometimes mess up these above settings after a major update, so you might need to check them in future.

• In-game, toggle the Chat Crew output setting and Proximity Chat setting in Audio. I use Speaker and Directional for these settings respectively but I know some folk have issues with those.

• Also in-game, in the Other Crews settings, double check the mute options. Even if they look correct, try toggling them. The game currently has a bug where some settings are not saving and being reflected correctly (hiding shipnames for example) and this may be the case with these settings for you.

Seeing as you seem certain it's not privacy settings (the chat indicator showing at all would back that up), this pretty much exhausts my knowledge of possible fixes.

I really hope Rare eventually give us a way to check audio input/output settings in game because it really seems like one of the most common issues folks have.

@otherfanboy said in i cant hear or talk to anyone:

@morgag3272 yup that's why the game only allows one chat at a time

That only applies on console. They are on PC. You can use your mic in game and be in a Discord chat on PC at the same time.

@otherfanboy said in i cant hear or talk to anyone:

@realstyli my buddy on pc has problems with it sometimes it works other times it doesn't when he's in a party chat

I don't use Party Chat on PC, I only use Discord, and it doesn't do take exclusive control of the microphone. Last time I did use Party Chat was a number of years ago and I don't remember that behaviour.

Tell your friend to try turning off the exclusive mode settings on his microphone: Sound control panel - recording tab - right-click on microphone - go to Properties and then Advanced tab. Two settings at the bottom will enable/disable apps from taking exclusive control of the microphone. I've never had to turn that off though.

That's unfortunate. This really seems like one of those rare cases where there is something very specific to your hardware configuration.

One thing it could be (very slim chance, I think) is whatever drivers are installed for your headset. I know a friend of mine had an issue with his Steelseries headset and Sea of Thieves and it turned out to be a driver update. He reverted the drivers to a previous version and they worked fine then. But that's going back a couple of years now.

Another thing you could try is installing Voicemeeter Banana or similar and routing your mic through that. Send only your mic to an aux output (in VBAN these would be B1 and B2) and set that aux as your Default Communication Device in the Sound Control panel. And set the input as your main Default Communication Device under Playback, and the output of the mixer (VBAN would be A1, A2, or A3) to your headphones. This is obviously adding more complexity to your set up but it should bypass any hardware related issues.

If you have an Nvidia RTX card, Nvidia Broadcast could also be used similarly for routing, even if you're not using it actively. Just set your mic as an Microphone Source and set the virtual microphone as your Default Communication Device. Output (Speakers) could probably be configured similarly.

@liberance said in i cant hear or talk to anyone:

@realstyli said in i cant hear or talk to anyone:

@otherfanboy said in i cant hear or talk to anyone:

@morgag3272 yup that's why the game only allows one chat at a time

That only applies on console. They are on PC. You can use your mic in game and be in a Discord chat on PC at the same time.

It doesn't anymore, at least for me. Once you join an Xbox Party or Discord channel, trying to switch to the game chat doesn't work like it used to. You can't hear others and they can't hear you, rendering the game chat channel useless and limiting you to your private group without the ability to talk to other players.

The audio problems with this game on console have been around for as many years as I've been playing.

This doesn't contradict what I was saying. I was pointing out that the limitation doesn't apply on PC, which is what they were implying.

I don't play on console, but I had heard about that issue, it sounds like a bug rather than a feature change to me. Audio support for voice chat in the game needs improvement on all platforms though, it's rather lacking for a game that highlights social interaction so much.