Auto Mute (or Mute Ban)

Games Other Halo
1

I posted this in General Discussion last night, but I think technically it belongs here:

I think auto mute should be removed from Halo: Reach, or at least changed. Why? Because it simply isn’t fair to a lot of players. If you play MLG, a lot of teams mute one another so they can’t hear what the others are talking about in-game, if that happens enough the people could end up auto muted in all playlists just because they like the MLG playlist.

I don’t play MLG but I am currently auto muted. Mainly because I sometimes kid around with people on Living Dead, but I’m never an outright d-bag. I don’t do this all the time, and I’m generally a team player. Heck, I’m not even on the mic that often on other playlists or even on living dead, but when I am I would like to be able to communicate with my team and auto mute prevents me from doing that. As I said, I don’t talk much and I don’t play MLG, which means either people just mute others even when they aren’t talking, or it only takes a few mutes in a short amount of time to earn an auto mute.

I think this needs to change. It takes about five seconds to mute an entire game full of people when you’re in a match, and a little longer than that in the lobby since you can’t just hit x to mute, so it’s not a hassle and it’s really relatively easy. I just don’t see the need for auto mute as a feature and I think that if it’s possible 343i should consider removing it in the TU.

I understand that a lot of people get auto muted for screaming into the mic and being a general annoyance for everyone in the game, so I think it would also be perfectly sensible to change it to require more mutes before someone is auto muted. My point is that the system as-is is not balanced and is a real annoyance for anyone who needs to talk to their team.

TL;DR because apparently people aren’t reading all of this: I am not a d-bag, I don’t mic spam, my voice isn’t squeaky, and I’m a nice player 99% of the time. It’s way too easy to earn an auto mute and it’s a feature that just isn’t necessary since it’s so easy to quickly mute people who are that much of an annoyance.

EDIT for updates: I think it would be awesome if they could just make it so that mute-banned people can still hear their teammates! I don’t mind not being able to talk, but I want to be able to still hear my teammates talk!

2

Stopped reading when you said you were a d-bag sometimes. That’s why you’re auto-muted.

I have never ran into someone auto-muted who turned out to sound nice. Screaming, squeaking, blaring music, yelling directly into the mic to troll, etc.

Your teammates can either un-mute you or you can join a party. But people like you are why this is a complete necessity in Halo. It shuts up those who are complete tools and try to ruin other people’s gaming with trash talk.

3

> Stopped reading when you said you were a d-bag sometimes. That’s why you’re auto-muted.
>
> I have never ran into someone auto-muted who turned out to sound nice. Screaming, squeaking, blaring music, yelling directly into the mic to troll, etc.
>
> Your teammates can either un-mute you or you can join a party. But people like you are why this is a complete necessity in Halo. It shuts up those who are complete tools and try to ruin other people’s gaming with trash talk.

Very very rarely. Not nearly enough to earn an auto mute, and not an in-your-face d-bag.

I don’t get on the mic and start insulting people, I just joke around in ways that I consider kind of rude, but most people don’t mind it and just play along.

4

> Stopped reading when you said you were a d-bag sometimes. That’s why you’re auto-muted.
>
> I have never ran into someone auto-muted who turned out to sound nice. Screaming, squeaking, blaring music, yelling directly into the mic to troll, etc.
>
> Your teammates can either un-mute you or you can join a party. But people like you are why this is a complete necessity in Halo. It shuts up those who are complete tools and try to ruin other people’s gaming with trash talk.

Everything this guy says is true. If you have any of the following, expect to be muted: 1. Squeaky voice (If I wanted to listen to it, I wouldn’t be playing xbox). 2. Useless noise (Swearing, trash-talking, terrible bands playing in the backround, having off-topic conversations with friends), 3. Constant whining about getting killed, 4. Bragging about your skills when all you’re doing is sniping. The list is endless.

5

Exactly! I’ve never muted an opposing player (that I remember), I’ve muted a LOT of random teammates.

Squeaky voices screaming obscenities the entire game is darn annoying. An open mic so you can hear the player talking to themselves = mute, Load music =mute. If the person has the ban they very likely deserve it.

6

> Everything this guy says is true. If you have any of the following, expect to be muted: 1. Squeaky voice (If I wanted to listen to it, I wouldn’t be playing xbox). 2. Useless noise (Swearing, trash-talking, terrible bands playing in the backround, having off-topic conversations with friends), 3. Constant whining about getting killed, 4. Bragging about your skills when all you’re doing is sniping. The list is endless.

I don’t have a squeaky voice, I don’t spam the mic or trash talk or have background conversations with friends, I don’t whine about getting killed, and I definitely don’t brag about my skills.

If you’re going to ignore all my points without really reading what I have to say, then you’re not helping. I specifically said that I just kid around with people, I’m not an outright d-bag and I hate mic spam.

If I did anything to warrant an auto mute I would be absolutely fine with it, but the fact is that I hardly ever use the mic anyway and that means that either people muted me while I was quiet or it only takes like 10 mutes within a day to get an auto mute.

7

Yes the mute ban should be removed because it’s so easy to mute people, if you’re not willing to take 2 seconds (literally) to mute them then they obviously aren’t doing anything that bad.

8

> Exactly! I’ve never muted an opposing player (that I remember), I’ve muted a LOT of random teammates.
>
> Squeaky voices screaming obscenities the entire game is darn annoying. An open mic so you can hear the player talking to themselves = mute, Load music =mute. If the person has the ban they very likely deserve it.

I agree that most people who have the ban deserve it, sometimes I unmute them to see what they’re like and most of them are annoying squeakers or mic spammers. I’ve stated multiple times now that I don’t fall into either one of these categories or any of the other categories listed. The only time I’m ever even a SLIGHT d-bag is when I play Living Dead for fun, but 99% of the time I’m a nice player and I work with my team, and I’ve very seldom had someone get outright angry at me (other than for some reason like I supposedly stole their kills, I’ve been yelled at a few times when I wasn’t even talking and was just trying to play the game :confused: )

9

> Yes the mute ban should be removed because it’s so easy to mute people, if you’re not willing to take 2 seconds (literally) to mute them then they obviously aren’t doing anything that bad.

That’s exactly my point. If someone is bad enough to be muted it only takes a few seconds max to mute them, so there isn’t a need for a feature like auto mute. At the very least it should be much harder to earn an auto mute.

10

> > Everything this guy says is true. If you have any of the following, expect to be muted: 1. Squeaky voice (If I wanted to listen to it, I wouldn’t be playing xbox). 2. Useless noise (Swearing, trash-talking, terrible bands playing in the backround, having off-topic conversations with friends), 3. Constant whining about getting killed, 4. Bragging about your skills when all you’re doing is sniping. The list is endless.
>
> I don’t have a squeaky voice, I don’t spam the mic or trash talk or have background conversations with friends, I don’t whine about getting killed, and I definitely don’t brag about my skills.
>
> If you’re going to ignore all my points without really reading what I have to say, then you’re not helping. I specifically said that I just kid around with people, I’m not an outright d-bag and I hate mic spam.
>
> If I did anything to warrant an auto mute I would be absolutely fine with it, but the fact is that I hardly ever use the mic anyway and that means that either people muted me while I was quiet or it only takes like 10 mutes within a day to get an auto mute.

I didn’t ignore your points. You said you jerk around with guys in Living Dead (Though this is quite common in that playlist). I haven’t muted you, so why target me? I’m just agreeing with this guy and giving my views. If I mute someone, it’s due to the things I stated. If you viewed this as an attack, my sincerest apologies. If you’ve been auto-muted, it’s likely by the guys you diss in LD (though if they take offense to it, they may want to try another playlist).

11

Sorry but if enough people have muted you then you deserve to be mute-banned. Obviously you’re annoying on the mic to people and is why they mute you.

You could come on here saying you never talk trash and are very nice on the mic, but how do we know that? People who get banned always say they’ve done nothing wrong but that’s always a lie, how do we know you’re not lying?

12

> Very very rarely. Not nearly enough to earn an auto mute, and not an in-your-face d-bag.
>
> I don’t get on the mic and start insulting people, I just joke around in ways that I consider kind of rude, but most people don’t mind it and just play along.

Obviously more than rarely, and more than most people DO mind it.

It takes quite a few mutes to get you mute banned… So just suck it up and accept the punishment. Too many people these days just won’t man up.

Recently I watched some idiot college student try to back out of a parking spot, and in the process scraped and dented the bumper of another car. He then tried to go forward and hit THE SAME CAR AGAIN. He starts driving off and me and my friends were just shocked. Needless to say, we got his license plate and gave it to the appropriate people for the situation.

Just man up and take the punishment.

13

> Sorry but if enough people have muted you then you deserve to be mute-banned. Obviously you’re annoying on the mic to people and is why they mute you.
>
> You could come on here saying you never talk trash and are very nice on the mic, but how do we know that? People who get banned always say they’ve done nothing wrong but that’s always a lie, how do we know you’re not lying?

That’s a fair point and I understand if you don’t believe me. But do I seem to you like the kind of person who would get on the mic and scream at teammates or do anything to annoy them?

My main point is that I’m hardly on the mic. I can’t possibly have gotten more then 10 mutes while talking, so that means the bar is set WAY too low for a mute ban. I can’t provide proof that I’m not annoying, so all I ask is that you read and consider what I’m saying. If someone is annoying enough to warrant a mute, it only takes 5 seconds max to mute your whole team in game, and only about 10 if you’re in the lobby. So it’s not hard to mute someone, and there’s no need for mute bans to even be in the game. I have muted my fair share of squeakers and spammers so I know that it’s annoying to have them on your team but at the very least the bar for how many mutes it requires for a mute ban really needs to be raised.

14

> I hardly ever use the mic anyway and that means that either people muted me while I was quiet or it only takes like 10 mutes within a day to get an auto mute.

I don’t think you’d get muted for being silent; if you are getting muted ten times in a given day, ten people had to go out of their way to shut you up. You said yourself that you are sometimes a d-bag, so I don’t doubt that people wanted to mute you.

Whenever I run into someone who was auto-muted, I un-mute them to see if they deserved it. 90% of the time, they are a squeaker/d-bag/ playing some crap music/ whatever else people have said. The other 10%, they are either quiet or decent mic users. I agree with the concept of the mute-ban, because it is an incentive for people to use the mic as it was intended. However, I am curious regarding the duration of said ban.

15

> Obviously more than rarely, and more than most people DO mind it.
>
> It takes quite a few mutes to get you mute banned… So just suck it up and accept the punishment. Too many people these days just won’t man up.
>
> Recently I watched some idiot college student try to back out of a parking spot, and in the process scraped and dented the bumper of another car. He then tried to go forward and hit THE SAME CAR AGAIN. He starts driving off and me and my friends were just shocked. Needless to say, we got his license plate and gave it to the appropriate people for the situation.
>
> Just man up and take the punishment.

What makes you think I’m not going to man up and take the punishment? What’s my alternative, quitting Reach? No way, I’ll keep playing and enjoying myself even if I can’t talk to anyone because I love Halo, and I like Reach.

In the mean time I don’t see anything unmanly about voicing my opinion on this forum. Let me again reiterate that I do not use the mic frequently. I spend the large majority of my time in a party with my friend, so that we don’t disturb the people in game chat with our discussions. There’s no reasonable explanation for me to have earned a large amount of mutes in the short time I use the mic, which leads me to believe that either I’m getting muted for no reason when I’m silent, or the amount of mutes it takes is much lower than you think.

16

> > I hardly ever use the mic anyway and that means that either people muted me while I was quiet or it only takes like 10 mutes within a day to get an auto mute.
>
> I don’t think you’d get muted for being silent; if you are getting muted ten times in a given day, ten people had to go out of their way to shut you up. You said yourself that you are sometimes a d-bag, so I don’t doubt that people wanted to mute you.
>
> Whenever I run into someone who was auto-muted, I un-mute them to see if they deserved it. 90% of the time, they are a squeaker/d-bag/ playing some crap music/ whatever else people have said. The other 10%, they are either quiet or decent mic users. I agree with the concept of the mute-ban, because it is an incentive for people to use the mic as it was intended. However, I am curious regarding the duration of said ban.

I think the duration is around two weeks, based on how long my friend was auto muted. But that’s only one example so really I have no idea, it could be dependent on how many mutes you earned before be ban set in or how rapidly you earned them, or even the total amount you’ve earned over time. I agree that 90% of the time the people who are auto muted deserve it, they’re mainly squeakers or spammers. If the system remains in place I’m not going to cry about it more or get angry, I’ll just do what I can to avoid being annoying in any way in the future in hopes that it doesn’t happen again.

I AM sometimes a d-bag, but I should clarify what I mean by that. Specifically, I sometimes go on living dead and mess with other zombies when I’m infected. Most of them laugh about it and join in, and when someone gets angry I stop messing with them and leave them be. In all other gametypes I am a nice player 100% of the time, I never get in my teammates way and I go out of my way to avoid making anyone angry. I’m hardly ever on the mic in these playlists and I’m always nice.

Hell, I don’t even horde power weapons. I usually give them to teammates because I don’t like to use them and I don’t want the enemy getting them, I very very rarely take a weapon when another teammate wants it, and when I do it’s only because they’ve been a d-bag or they’ve been using it the entire game and being a jerk about it. I’m really not a bad player, I spend most of my time in party chat with my friends or with my mic off because I’m not very talkative and I don’t want to accidentally breathe into it. So I really don’t think I deserve my mute-ban.

17

> I don’t see the point of your college student comparison

You should accept the consequences for your actions

> let me again reiterate that I do not use the mic frequently. I spend the large majority of my time in a party with my friend, so that we don’t disturb the people in game chat with our discussions.

If you use the mic as seldom as you claim, why do you care that you are mic banned?

18

> > I don’t see the point of your college student comparison
>
> You should accept the consequences for your actions
>
> > let me again reiterate that I do not use the mic frequently. I spend the large majority of my time in a party with my friend, so that we don’t disturb the people in game chat with our discussions.
>
> If you use the mic as seldom as you claim, why do you care that you are mic banned?

Okay, I see what he meant now.

Well, I care because I want to be able to hear my teammates (you can’t hear them when you’re mute-banned), and I really want to be able to work with my team when I need to.

Actually now that I think about it, I would be okay with just being able to hear my teammates talk while I’m auto muted, so that I can still keep up with anything important they say.

19

> Well, I care because I want to be able to hear my teammates (you can’t hear them when you’re mute-banned), and I really want to be able to work with my team when I need to.

I can see how that would be a problem. The ban should only mute you, not your teammates.

20

> > Well, I care because I want to be able to hear my teammates (you can’t hear them when you’re mute-banned), and I really want to be able to work with my team when I need to.
>
> I can see how that would be a problem. The ban should only mute you, not your teammates.

I honestly would be completely fine with just being able to hear my teammates. But I think that in that case, mutes from an mute-banned person shouldn’t count against someone (assuming they do now, which I doubt) because people would probably get muted a lot by mute-banned people who are mad about not being able to say anything back to them.