As more time passes and more players join multiplayer games, the option to mute someone has become almost a necessary part of a game. CS: GO is no different, and there is a reason behind it. Chances are that we've all had experience with certain players who simply won't stop talking. Or maybe they don't talk as much but when they do, all that comes out of their mouth is toxicity, after which the scoreboard just starts looking horrible for you guys.
Luckily, you can still save yourself and your sanity by muting these types of players. Valve has added some amazing features for making all of their games, not just CSGO, more enjoyable and they're fighting against toxic behavior in general. You can easily mute players, you can block communication of all sorts, you can eliminate or turn down the volume on voice chat, and much more.
This article will focus on explaining these things, how they work, why you need them in a CS:GO match, how to enable and disable everything of the sort, and a few new and key features that Valve has provided for their community. First thing's first, let's see how to mute people in Counter-Strike Global Offensive with the simple click of a mouse button.
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Different Ways to Mute Players in CSGO
There's no doubt that CSGO is a highly popular game, and it just keeps growing in popularity. In 2020, statistics have shown that CSGO had a record-breaking 20 million active monthly users. Before you come to any conclusions, this doesn't mean that 20 million players were all playing the game at the same time. Instead, this was the number of individual players that played the game during a period of one month.
The question is, what does this mean for the community? Well, since the player number is continuously growing, it is inevitable that toxic behavior would also rise. This is just a natural part of all games, it isn't limited to just CSGO. Other Valve games such as DOTA 2, Team Fortress, and more also experience toxic player behavior. As a result of this, certain measures had to be taken. One of the most helpful ways to deal with toxic players is that mute option.
There are a few different ways you can mute a person in CSGO. The first and most basic of all is to simply prevent reading their messages in the chat. But, what happens if the player starts using their microphone to spread even more negativity? In that case, you can either turn down the voice chat volume or completely disable it for that specific player. Valve has also recently added an automatic mute feature to CSGO, which we will discuss here.
But first, let's talk about muting the player chat as the first step of dealing with toxic players.
How to Mute Player Chat in CSGO
Muting certain players is a very effective way of avoiding their behavior from ruining your game. One frequent question players have is whether the person you've muted can hear or read your messages in the chat. Let's make everything clear here and share a bit more about that.
When you mute a player, or prevent any type of communication from them, you're the one cutting them off, not the other way around. So, muting one or several other individual players in CSGO will prevent you from seeing their chat messages or hearing the voice chat from them, but it won't do the same for them. They will still be able to see what you type but will not be aware that you have muted them.
So, the question here is what are the key steps you need to take in order to mute a player in CS:GO? The process is very simple, it just takes pressing a few buttons and you may do the following steps in the right order:
- Press the “Tab” key to open the scoreboard
- Click the Right Mouse Button to gain control over the cursor
- Left Click on the person you would like to mute and press “Block Communication”
- Release the “Tab” button to hide the scoreboard and proceed with the game
Congratulations, you have just muted a toxic player that was probably ruining your entire gaming experience while playing CS:GO. Doing this will prevent you from both hearing the player's voice and seeing their text messages in the chat.
However, there are other added things that you can do so that you only block one way of communication instead of the two.
Using Commands to Block Communication in CSGO
If you want to disable all forms of communication from a certain player, or two, or three, the previous step we showed is a fast and efficient way of doing so through the scoreboard. All you have to do is simply find and press the name of each of the players you want muted and block all forms of communication with them. This will allow you to enjoy your game without having to hear what these players have to say, which is mainly rude and irrelevant comments.
If you consider yourself a valuable player with lots of experience who often shares useful information to his buddies, this is also a great way to keep them muted but still be able to share your thoughts. You might not be able to hear them anymore, but everyone can still hear and see what you have to say, which is often great for winning a match, considering you only share valuable information and not gibberish.
Using commands can allow you to easily prevent everyone in the match from talking to you within your team. Using the command console, you can enter certain commands that will instantly prevent communication with everyone either on your team or globally. Instead of pressing on everyone's name individually on the scoreboard, you can do it with a simple command, and just as easily reverse it.
Communication Blocking Commands in CSGO
If you want to mute every player's voice on your team, type in the following command in the console:
- voice_enable 0
If you want to unmute everyone's voice on your team, type in the following command in the console:
- voice_enable 1
If you want to mute just the enemy team, enter the following command in the console:
- cl_mute_enemy_team 1
If you want to unmute the enemy team, type the following command in the console:
- cl_mute_enemy_team 0
If you want to make sure no messages are disrupting your gameplay at all, type in the following command in the console:
- ignoremsg
This command isn't like using voice_enable 0 and its counterpart and will reset once you leave CSGO, as it can't be saved in the game's settings. Having said this, you will want to enter this command each time you open the game. Doing this might cause you to feel left out, but everything for the win, right?
Enabling and disabling a few of these features can also be executed a lot faster. This is highly beneficial when you want to use communication block quickly while still in-game, and not being forced to open the scoreboard and left click on all the players to mute them. The way to do this is to name a bind command. You can bind certain commands in CS:GO, such as voice_enable 0 and voice_enable 1 by performing a bind command.
In the console, all you have to do is name this command and the appropriate character to which you have the command binded. Usually, to disable voice chat you can use “bind *”, and to enable it again use “bind ^”.
You can also take advantage of commands to increase and lower voice chat volume in CS:GO. If you don't wish to completely disable the voice chat, you can use the following command:
- voice_scale #
The “#” character is the number between 0(disabled) and 1(max volume). For example, you can open the console and type voice_scale 0.5. This will set the voice chat volume at halfway.
Valve's Auto-Mute System for Toxic Players
There's one more thing you can contribute to when it comes to the option of muting certain players. This won't mute the player directly, but it will contribute to a greater purpose. Valve's auto-mute system is relatively new, as it was a feature introduced to the game in February 2020. It allows you to report abusive players. Once they've gathered enough reports, which they will, considering they're acting the same in every single game, the player will be banned from talking to other players in any way.
You can use your reports to make the game better by reporting those who truly deserve it. Once the player receives a few reports, they will receive a warning from CS:GO, telling them of what's going to follow if they keep up what they're doing. If this is ignored and more reports start racking up, the same player will finally receive their auto-mute and will not be able to share his thoughts until they gather enough XP to reverse its effects. The key here is to make CS:GO a better and friendlier community, a place rid of all toxicity.
Conclusion
Muting players in CS:GO is not a bad thing. In fact, it's a feature sent by the gods to help you win more games by choosing to ignore players who share nothing but bad vibes. You've now seen the many ways you would find useful to block certain players from speaking to you. The key is to take advantage of this information wisely and enjoy winning more games with certain muted players.
Choose whether you'd like to do this simply by pressing the “Tab” button to open the scoreboard and click their name with your mouse, or use the command feature in CS:GO. Choose what's right for you, as you can't go wrong either way. Much of this isn't completely new, but it's extremely useful content for new gamers who may have gotten sick of the same abusive CS:GO players over and over. Best of all, it's not at all difficult, as all it takes is a bit more than one click to get the job done.
