Ever since the Epic Games Service integration patch, VoIP has switched service from using Steamworks to Vivox. For some reason, either by implementation or Vivox being buggy, VoIP has never reliably worked since. This guide is to help you either fix your VoIP or hopefully make your experience a little better.

You can't hear people speak, even though you see their names popping up.
You think someone is having a conversation but you only seem to be able to hear one side of it

• It's possible the person you don't hear actually isn't transmitting any speech (so VoIP is broken on their end, not yours).
  
• In what sounds like a one-sided conversation, it's possible they are speaking to someone on the other team or on another server (via another VoIP bug). Or they are just talking outside of their correct channel.

The old classic fix is to cycle all of the voice channels. Personally, this used to work reliably for me after the first EGS patch, but since more recent patches it takes a little more. I find that cycling all of the channels and then holding caps (or whatever your voice button is) for a second will make all of the comms kick in.
For example, if I'm in a game where I see the commander is talking and others are replying but either I don't hear him or whatever, I'll just cycle my channels to local chat then hold caps for a second or two and everything should kick in.
Others report that VoIP will kick in after a map change. This isn't my experience, but a lot of this is already anecdotal.

Odds are, if there's someone specific you can't hear it's likely that it's just their VoIP is messed up on their end.

This is the much more difficult problem of the two.

Check if the VoIP needle is moving: Join a server and press the VoIP key (CAPS by default). If your VoIP is working, you should see the VoIP indicator needle jump towards the right as you talk.
Anecdotally, I've had VoIP fail in the practice range and then immediately work in the next server I join. I've also had the needle move in the practice range too though, so I'm unsure of what to make of that.

Please verify your mic is actually working. This guide is specifically for when RS2 isn't picking up your microphone. You can test your microphone in Windows sound setting or in Discord, for example. If those don't work your microphone may not be set as default or it may be muted/unplugged).

To begin, it's worth mentioning that I believe the in-game microphone settings button is deprecated and has no meaningful impact on whether VoIP will work for you or not. As pushing the button will open the Steamworks Microphone menu, and we know RS2 no longer uses steamworks for its VoIP service, I think it was left in by accident or for whatever reason. This isn't 100% fact, but just my belief. There is also the evidence that changing your microphone in Steam will not have any effect in-game.

So the real problem with why your microphone likely isn't working, is just that the game is picking up the wrong device to use for your mic. I have two solutions

Since the game is probably picking up the wrong device to use as a microphone (regardless of what you have set as default), you can just disable all other devices than the one you want to use as a microphone. To do this:

• Right click the volume button in the system tray and select Sounds
  
  
• Navigate to the Recording tab, then disable all microphones except for the one you need. You can figure out which one you need by speaking into your microphone and watching the meter on the right jump. (if you can't disable all microphones, try method B)
  
  
• Hop in game and try it out.

• Open Device Manager. Expand "Audio inputs and outputs".
  
• Right click the microphone you want to use and select Properties.
  
• Select the Details tab. Under Property, select "Device Instance Path". Leave this window open.
  
• Navigate to
  %userprofile%\Documents\My Games\Rising Storm 2\ROGame\Config\RoEngine.ini
  either via file explorer or you can paste that string into Run to open it directly. (The .ini at the end may be hidden depending on your file explorer settings)
  
• In RoEngine.ini, scroll all the way to the bottom until you see.
  [VoiceInterfaceVivox.AudioDevicesList]
  and
  [VoiceInterfaceVivox.AudioDevicesIndex]
• Read carefully. Picture for clarity. Under the AudioDevicesList you will find all of your microphones the game is picking up. Under AudioDevicesIndex, to the right of SelectedIndex is the number representing which Microphone the game is using. So, SelectedIndex=0 will use Microphone0. Simply change the SelectedIndex number to whichever microphone you want to use.
  
  
• Test in-game. If you notice that the SelectedIndex reverts back to 0 after you launch, set the file to read-only mode (I used to have to do this but noticed recently I don't have to). Please note if you do set it to read only that you won't be able to change some settings in game and have them save after restarting.

There is no guarantee any of these fixes will work, but in particular Fix B has worked for myself and many others when none other did. In the end though sometimes VoIP will just flat out fail no matter what you try, and I'd just chalk it up to the Vivox (fun fact - Insurgency Sandstorm has also used Vivox and has experienced VoIP issues with channels getting mixed up with each other).
Regarding solution b: here are 2 other ways I've described it if you want more info:
Tripwire Forum[forums.tripwireinteractive.com]
Reddit

Feel free to ask in Mr Deds discord[discord.gg] (I am @Mechanite#5300) if you want more help or are having trouble understanding something