I wonder if anyone else agrees with this...
When I first booted up the game, it bought the lack of chat options were stifling. The world felt a bit anti-social and I felt restricted and shut in.
However, I soon started adding people in game and after a day or so I had a couple of dozen active members on my FL. Since then, the game has been incredibly social. People joining my games mid way, messages for different activities constantly, and every single experience has been positive with all players being pleasant and friendly.
The social experience here is much more personal than a standard online game with public chat, and doesn't allow the opportunity for off the cuff comments which can lead to nastiness and bickering. The only way to communicate fully is to actively add someone and speak to them directly via voice chat, that just makes people far more considerate.
I think it was a really smart move.
Now they need to streamline it. Add some QOL options like the ability to request your match made team switches to a fire team without having to click through both other player's menus, or a flag you could set so if you're running next to another player during a story mission and you both head into a restricted spawn area you sync up to each other and form a party. Things like this would make the players feel more connected without having to add a local chat and have the game fall fowl to the downsides of Internet personalities.
