I outlined this bug previously, however now I feel it deserves its own post.  This hindrance to gameplay is so annoying, it is just killing multiplayer in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

In Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, the dead can no longer voice-chat with the living in Team Deathmatch.

I'm sure this change was done to curb "cheating", however when you die, you no longer hear your teammates that are still alive, nor can you talk to them.  You can only talk to other players that are also dead, waiting to re-spawn.

This change kind of makes sense if you are playing a Team Survival match.  It cuts down on distracting chatter (for people still alive) and of course you don't want dead players helping out the ones that are still alive (even though help from the dead is limited, in that they can only watch the screens of people on their own team).  However for any game that has respawns (especially unlimited respawning), disabling chat is just stupid.

Should you die, you have roughly 7 seconds (on average) before you respawn again.  In those 7 seconds, chatting with the living is disabled, and you can only chat with other teammates who are dead (which at any given moment isn't very many people).  I honestly do not know what Ubisoft was thinking when they decided to disable chat-with-the-living for this ridiculously short timespan.

This does nothing to curb cheating, and in fact winds up greatly hindering communication and team play because people are constantly dropping in and out of chat.  It has the net effect of reducing the amount of talking to almost nothing.  I cannot tell you how many games I have played where people have complained that their mics are not working, or that there is something wrong with the server because of this bullshit.  Nobody knows what is going on, because no other game disables chat for unlimited respawn matches, including the previous Rainbow Six: Vegas.

Rainbow Six titles are known for abundant and necessary team communication, but all of that changes with Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.  Team silence is exactly what this ludicrous policy is encouraging, and it is affecting all matches across-the-board.  Try playing Attack and Defend with nobody talking.  That's right, you lose. 

If chat-with-the-living were enabled, I suppose in those 7 seconds I could warn my teammates where the enemy is, which might be considered cheating.  However if I can just tell them 7 seconds later, what does it matter?  If my teammates are going to be hunted down within the timespan of 7 seconds, would any warnings really be effective anyway?

This change needs to go away, and Ubisoft needs to enable chat-with-the-living on matches that have unlimited respawn.  As it stands now, this bug (yes, I'm calling it a bug, because it is too stupid to be a gameplay decision) is greatly disrupting team communication in a way that is confusing players, with zero benefit to gameplay.

Ubisoft, please fix it.