PlayStation 4 firmware update 8.00 might have received the most intensely negative reaction to a Sony console patch ever. Fans are not happy with the new, convoluted way of setting up a party to begin chatting away with their mates. However, it doesn't look like the feature will be changed in any significant way on PlayStation 5 — in terms of how it operates at least. As part of yesterday's UI reveal, Sid Shuman touched on how you can share the images you capture with parties, which look a lot like the message groups we are currently having to put up with.
Towards the end of the demonstration, Sid chooses to share a Destruction AllStars capture with some buddies. He selects a party named Nifty Voyagers, which is shown to be already having a voiced discussion by the headphone icon to the right of the group's name. Because of that, we have a lot of evidence to suggest that these parties will work in a similar way to message groups whereby you can send text messages, start parties, and share media with your friends all in one place.
Sid Shuman even reinforces that with the quote: "Remember, parties are bigger than just voice chat now." It's an awkward situation to be in because this new system does bring with it a lot of benefits if you have a dedicated friendship group you play your PS4 and PS5 games with. It acts like a Discord channel as everything happens in one place. But as soon as someone else wants to join the team, things get a lot trickier. PS4 users have also found out that adding new players to your message group allows the newcomer to see your entire chat history. That's no good, is it?
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Maybe don't invite people whom you don't want to read your entire chat history? Just a thought.
I get the frustration, but as someone who plays with the same small group of people over and over this all sounds great to me.
@naruball Then you're going to have to set up yet another message group to do so. Fun, right?
As someone who doesn't really use the parties much — so can't really have a meaningful opinion — I feel like there are positives and negatives.
If you play with a regular group, then having a Discord-style environment does seem like a genuine improvement, as there's more to this than just Party chat.
But obviously, for those off-the-cuff moment-to-moment game sessions, it's a downgrade. I wonder if a middle-ground can be found here?
Interesting challenge, but clearly Sony's going to have to make some changes here because the feedback has not been good.
And this is why like on Switch, and Xbox, and for mobile games...we all just use Discord.
Drop in, drop out, send an invite for anyone new to join what already exists, done.
Yeah it requires a second screen and a phone or PC, but it works, and it's why most people playing games online these days use third party apps instead.
The old console way was simply inefficient for most content creators or multiplayer groups.
Sadly though, this doesn't look like it fixes that, and in trying to, makes it harder for regular players to just squad up willynilly with their friends list.
Discord is probably rubbing their hands with glee right now at all the Nitro subs coming up.
Can see to a point what they were aiming for, but they seem to under-estimate that most players tend to have a core group they hang out with... so alot of the extension of this whole thing is nice, but arguably unnecersary too.
Also feel that this is not integrated as well as they hoped with the PS4, so if its a bit more instantanious on the PS5, then i guess it wont be so much a hassle.. Getting into parties after the update, seems to take longer, but then that could be down to a billlion and one things outside of the app / service itself
@get2sammyb Normally I only chat with people that aren’t my friends using game chat and not party chat. Can you still do that with the new update? I usually don’t add someone to a party I’m in unless it’s someone I already know
@LiamCroft why would you invite people you don't like or trust in the first place?
Makes me doubly glad I don’t have gaming friends to distract me from my games and requesting that I join boring, repetitive, team games with no end point.
@naruball Destiny 2 raids, for example. If you don't have enough players to start the activity, you can't take part. I've played with loads of randoms over the years in order to experience a raid. And there's quite a big difference between agreeing to play with a random person and revealing your private chat history to them.
@LiamCroft thenm like you said, you set up another group. Not a big deal at all. It feels like we're looking for things to complain about.
@thefourfoldroot soinds exactly like me 😂😂 the ammount of friends that ask me to play Cod or fortnight etc is mad. I just say if it doesnt have a beginning, middle or end then im not interested in playing it lol.
Having worked on secure messaging systems it seems like the real solution here is just to make it really easy to open a new party. Add a button to fork off a new party with the same participants and a dialogue to allow you to add/remove participants before notifying anyone. This gives you all the power of having parties be more than just chat, while not adding too much friction to how people were previously using them.
@DertieBertie that's a nice solution from a user perspective, but without knowing how the system is coded that could be either trivial, or an incredible amount of work. Lightweight forking of parties brings you most of the way there while being fairly trivial to implement, but doesn't quite give you the level of UX as your proposal.
And now I realise I'm treating this comment thread as if it's on a RFC…
it's still garbage change it back
This is a major problem. Sony is acting like your group of gamer friends is something you want to remain connected to through messages and screenshots and whatever THROUGH their system. I'm willing to bet, for a lot of people, it's truly not. (My buddies and I have a text thread for this exact scenario; we NEVER use a console's solutions because we don't need other apps when texting works fine.) That's cool for those that want it, but a lot of times, a voice party is JUST a voice party. All you NEED is to have an ad hoc chat.
The fact they are removing the ability to create a simple, one-off solution for a night's worth of gaming is insanely dumb.
Actually me and my gaming buds took to it just fine. Initially when it was released we had issues seeing who was online, etc but this doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I'm actually digging the UI and can't wait to explore it further on my Ps5. Me and my pals already have a group message going so we can talk when we want to. Everything just seems more simplistic now, but it is an adjustment. Don't understand every complaint myself, in my view I don't see why someone would want to chat with another that they actually don't want to be friends with. Seeing messages shouldn't be a issue, unless you're a possible d bag
@MFTWrecks I'm confused. You don't have to remain connected to anyone if you don't want to. When you want to chat just set up a group. Don't want to chat? Don't set up a group. Perhaps you're overcomplicating it, mate. Seems most are.
@dellyrascal honestly I think it was done to make it so ps4 players can still easily hook up with their friends who have a ps5. I suspect changes will happen eventually as with anything else, though. I'm trying to understand peoples complaints, but am having a hard time doing so because I find the chat system to be so simple. Just invite who you want to talk to and go on with your day. But maybe people wanted more than that? Not sure.
@LiamCroft pretty easy to do when you have people grouped off. Personally it takes me less than two seconds. People I talk to are in personal lists according to what game we play. But there again I might be more orderly than the average bear so perhaps I'm an exception.
So why exactly can't they just add this as a feature instead of changing the system? I don't get it
@naruball You're missing the point about this new system and why people don't like it. There are relatively simple workarounds to make the new system not as annoying, BUT you didn't have to do ANY of this before. Not to mention that when you are playing multiplayer games on PS4 like Warzone, for example, doing this can easily take up to a minute of waiting for the UI to load and process what you're doing while the game is running.
And again, you didn't have to fuss with any of this BEFORE the update.
It's over engineered, and doesn't work that well on PS4. Finding people to play with in PS Communites has never been more irritating as well.
Another change we noted last night is the “suggest friends to leader” option is gone. Anyone in the party can add someone to your party it seems. Unless there’s something we were missing.
@Adagiumx But you can't add people to a group. You have to create a new one.
I sign on and a buddy is on. Cool, to chat I now have to create a group between him and I.
Then a third buddy hopes on. We want to chat. Can't add him to an existing chat, have to create a new group with the 3 of us. Cool. Do that. We're talking.
Fourth buddy signs on. All new group is needed!
Now a week later a few buddies sign on, which group was it that had the right mix of people to chat in? Or do I want an overarching group with everyone that may or may not be on, that may or may not want to chat, but who will get spammed with chat requests?
The ones that over-complicated it are Sony.
@Adagiumx My gaming buddies and I have a group, too. It's called a text thread. Who tf does Sony think they are assuming most people want to use a single-console's systems to do their chatting?
I guarantee you, without question, that the people that do so are a vast minority. And so building their system to cater to that niche is beyond stupid.
On system parties are for temporary chat parties. That's the point. Jump on, boot up a party, invite those you are playing with. Done.
If you want a discord like service, then build something like the xbox clubs. It allows communities to build, keep in touch, and share content, but without destroying the party feature.
@naruball "Maybe don't invite people whom you don't want to read your entire chat history? Just a thought."
Have you never been in a party chat before? If you have friends in your party chat who want to invite their own friends into the chat who aren't friends with you, this is going to be a mess. That is how the vast majority of parties are as well, it's bizarre Sony wasn't aware of that. And then there's people who just team up while meeting in a game and want to party up, this has made that far more complicated than it should be.
I don't understand why people think this is bad. It's just like how Instagram or WhatsApp works. For people saying now randoms can see my old messages then dude create another group where you add random people. You do know that you always needed to create a new party whenever you wanted to talk to someone ? So creating a new group won't be tiring right ?
Sony needs to have both. Make it easy to create a group chat in a party. Simple as that. Sony needs to fix this plain and simple. Addition of a feature is no reason to remove a feature.
@Constable_What
No Sony is basically Midas. Now enjoy the "gold" you didn't ask for.
@Jaz007 This is what I was thinking. Why not have a Discord like feature for those that want it and then the conventional party system. I never use parties so I don't get it, is there something that prevents having both?
@zupertramp Sony doesn't want you on other platforms when they can make a similar service, but worse.
They didn't take any of the feedback from the beta at all, and they're not going to change it. It is annoying, but it is kinda minor.
@PeakyBlinder Except parties disappear once disbanded, groups will continue to bug the living hell out of you with notifications long after you're done with it. They can be deleted, but I mean it's a hassle if 10-12 people get invited separately that's 10-12 groups that need to be deleted and risks you accidentally deleting other groups you're a part of. It's all an unnecessary convoluted mess now. The old adage if it ain't broke don't fix it comes to mind in this situation.
The update works well for me since I mainly play with the same group of friends but it seems Sony didn't consider all use cases. Adding a visitor system where one-off party members can join and not see the full chat history and allowing users to be in a party by themselves are fixes that quell most peoples concerns.
I have never once used the party feature, so its not really an issue for me; but I can see how it would annoy people, and having access to the entire history when adding a new person is a no-no.
I think @DertieBertie has the right idea. Thats perfect. Just like "guest" accounts on the console itself.
@KisekiFan7 Same can be said when making parties but now you don't need to find people again and again everytime you wanna chat with them.
@naruball I play in a Destiny 2 clan mainly but not always the same people. I find it annoying that I need to either make separate groups or just one and annoy the people who currently aren't playing with notifications.
Some days I play with 2 friends, other times 3, and it's not always the same people.
Honestly, seems like a reasonable trade off for a more robust Discord like party system. The only thing I ask, and I'm sure it's already part of the system, just allow me options to mute groups.
@Nepp67 because. Changes!
The main problem is that the ps4 communities have no party chats anymore and that's where I meet a lot of people.
@PeakyBlinder Actually no because before if you ignored a party it didn't automatically add you into a group. There's also that PS messages bug that occurs when the app causes you to run out of RAM, which in-turn causes the messages app to continuously give you a "rebuilding database" error that is an absolute nightmare to fix.
Maybe just use discord for chat and not ps messages
@naruball it would be annoying to make a new message group every time someone wants to join and would take time as the ps4 takes time to load these kind of things.
This is surprisingly a deal breaker for me. I don't often play online but when I do it's with various friends of my list. Most people I play are independent of each other so it's rare there's the same people in the same party. If this is not fixed on the ps5. I just won't buy one. I presume the Xbox is the same it's always been?
Soo if your girlfriend wants to come to read the other girls youve been messaging to without her knowing? Wrong your dead haha..
@LiamCroft dont invite people that you would be embarrassed to show your chat to
I always play solo. Not sure why this new party setup is a problem. Doesnt bother me at all.
Glad I've played less & less multiplayer, but when i do, it's LFG groups for Destiny 2, so i guess i should stick to Xbox for multiplayer & use switch & PS for single player, just like every gen since Xbox has existed. It's odd that they didn't think about a large chunk of their player base, tho.
@Karmatic_weeb has nothing to do with embarrassment. Randoma aren't always good people, even if they're good at a game. You may discussing private issues, then need a random couple ppl to complete a raid in destiny 2. Now you are limited to ppl u know personally, or have to jump through hoops it sounds like to make a separate party & get some randoms to help. Unnecessarily convoluted, IMHO.
@Haruki_NLI
Really? I find Discord to be a giant confusing mess. I just use the built in console chat functions for everything, always have, and wouldike to keep it that way.
Playing on PC, I can see the reason for Discord, but I'm still not a fan of it. I used it for Destiny 2 clans and that was it.
@PhantomMenace84 but then that person would see all of our previous messages and hence the need to create a new message group.
Even if I would have no problem with that random person seeing our messages, there's still the need to send an invite whenever someone new wants to join which is almost as long and as annoying as creating a new message group whenever someone wants to join.
@Shepherd_Tallon
I made an account just to counter this horrible point.
Everyone plays differently. I usually like to start up a party from a large community dedicated to a certain game. I get tons of random throw away players....I use to be able to invite them directly to the game without having to add them (via Play Together...now gone) then....if we clicked and gamed well add them later on, now I can not easily invite whole communuties and I have to friend olayers to invite them.
Even if all this was fine, some games have HORRIBLE built in invite systems, that do not load all of your friends....MANY MANY MANY times I HAD to invite players via Play Together....or we could never actually play together (haha pun). That option is now gone amd it has caused massive headaches and had some friends not even be able to play with me.
Even if they keep everything else the same PLEASE I BEG YOU TO BRING PLAY TOGETHER INVITES BACK AND THE ABILITY TO INVITE COMMUNITIES BACK.
Honestly I could get around whole thing if, and only if, there was a way to remove someone from a group and have group admins. Because with the new update, me and my friends have really put thought into it that since we're recorder 24/7 and not everything everyone says is free of a few dark humor jokes or swearing, if someone were to add some random kid from fortnite, or one of my friend's cousins that despite being in high school throws a huge fit over the smallest of swear words, we could all either get into serious trouble or even banned from the simplest of things. I'm not saying they'd try and swear around the kid 24/7 but you die in a game and sometimes it just slips. I myself am the person that tries to keep things cleaner when there's younger friends or family members in the party, but now all it takes is a little report to screw something up. We need the option to remove players from group chats and have designated group admins/ability to assign and unassign admin privileges from message group members.
@naruball because sometimes you don't have that option. Anyone in a message group can invite/accidentally invite someone. With everything going on and the lack of being able to remove people from groups can cause a lot of frustration.
@BadUpdate You make a fair point (although to say that mine was "horrible" is a tad aggressive. Let's keep the conversation friendly.)
As I said I get the frustration. But speaking only for myself and how I play, these changes have very little impact on me.
And besides, I don't think you'll have much to worry about for long. They're listening to the feedback and will no doubt make some changes going forward.
@Kang81 I think the crux of the issue is this new system wants to be Discord, doesn't understand why Discord works for what it is, and in doing so fails to be Discord.
But to implement this they removed what made console based interaction worth using: because it's NOT Discord.
I think this is a pretty nice change. I only play with the same couple friends usually anyway but if you don't want random people or friends to join there's a private party setting and also you can limit how many people can be in the party. Simple as that.
Best thing is with the new system is I can do all this while in game and not have to wait for my system to load the party screen and then load my friend list to invite people and stuff while my game is just sitting in the background and I can't see what's going on. Notification pops up while in game, hit the join button right there in the corner and ta-da! Done!
@Haruki_NLI
I hope they find a good solution, but I'm not holding my breath just yet.
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