With every update the in-game chat filter becomes more and more draconian, and it has now reached the point where it’s becoming impossible to communicate with teammates.
I have just lost a game in part because I tried 5 times to send a simple message and it was censored every time, no matter how I tried to word it. The enemy was cutting through the middle in hideout, pings were not enough as I lost the LOS over their onagers when my units died, so tried to warn them via chat only for it to be censored every time until they’d already cut through. There was no way to warn my allies to wall, move eco or send units until it was too late.
It is now so difficult to communicate in-game that I think it’s reached the point where the chat should just be removed altogether - it doesn’t currently fulfill any purpose. It’s simply not working as a communication tool, and there’s no other purpose to it, so it should be scrapped.
Not only will this completely remove the risk from offensive chat being spoken in game, freeing up dev time to stop working on the filter, forcing users to find their own external programs communicate with will actually benefit the community. We’ll be able to speak more freely, knowing that we can be understood, and without the frustration of having to repeat ourselves multiple times.
It’s clear that the filter isn’t going anywhere, and that the direction of travel is that it’ll be more restrictive, not less. The censor is only going to continue to get worse, so the only way to guarantee that your message will actually be received and understood is to use a different program.