Since 343 studios doesn’t actually have a contact email for customer support and instead wants you to complain on the forums then I’ll complain here for the sole purpose to direct this toward a member of 343, NOT the community.
As you are aware MANY people are complaining that they are unfairly getting banned from voice chat. There has been absolutely no communication on this matter. Considering we paid a premium for this game and pay for the online service this feature being removed is unreasonable. My frustrations have grown as its been over a week with NO response from a team member and now…over a week I remain banned.
I want some clarification on this matter and I want this fixed.
I’ll take advantage of your post directed at 343i here, if you don’t mind. I was voice banned a week and one day ago while I was in the middle of a game. The message said “This account has been banned from using voice online for one week. http://www.halo4.com/ban”. It pops up every time I start Halo 4. I didn’t have my mic plugged in when the ban took place. 2 days before that, a friend of mine was playing with me when suddenly he got voice banned. Neither him or I were being disrespectful in any way, though we were the only people talking in every game we had played. As stated, I got banned 2 days later than him. I figured that, fine, I did nothing wrong, but I’d simply wait out the ban, since we could still hear each other, being in the same Halo 4 party. He informed me that he is still banned after the week the message says he should be banned for. It’s been more than a week for me too. This is ridiculous. First we got banned for no legitimate reason, then we don’t get unbanned on time. I don’t expect 343 to even reply to or look at this, or unban my voice communication, but in the off chance that they do, this needs to stop. I can’t personally vouch for anybody else who claims of unfair bans, but I can assure you that my friend and I got banned unjustly, without any reason behind it. I feel uncomfortable playing most of the game types because a lot of them are team oriented. Without being able to tell teammates “Hey, there’s a guy right behind you with a sword.” I have to suffer extra team losses, and an all around unpleasant game playing experience. I don’t understand why so many people claim to get banned unfairly and 343 seems to do nothing about it. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe they’re looking in to why their ban system takes completely legitimate players and bans them for seemingly no reason. After so many complaints, you would think they were doing something to improve their automated system. I’m not asking for you to lift my account’s voice communication ban, though that would be nice, I don’t expect you to, since anybody can claim innocence. I’m simply asking you to look into this. Maybe reply with some possible reasons that people are getting banned. Maybe keep your word on when bans are lifted. If it says a week, it should be a week. Not a week and a day, not a week and 3 days, not 2 weeks, it should be 1 week from the time you get banned, like it says.
Also, at 2 points during my ban, I could hear other players, and they could hear me. It was like suddenly my ban had been lifted (I was hopeful that they finally figured out that it was a bug and unbanned accordingly.) then suddenly in the next game, everything was silent again and it seemed that I was banned from voice yet again. I don’t understand this at all. As a fan of Halo, and an initial fan of the way 343 was handling things, I ask you to please rewrite your automated system so as to avoid these all too common pointless bans.
PS. IF you were to finally unban my account, since it IS past the week that you set, my friend would probably like his account’s voice back too.
Psiguy92 is me, OGcheefer420 is his account.
Do the right thing, 343.
Just to hop in and say, voice bans are completely controlled by the players, if someone mutes you enough, you’ll get voice banned, just like the mute bans in Halo: Reach.
Just realized that there’s a better area for this post, the “Official Halo 4 Ban Thread”. I’ll post this there too, just because it’s more likely to get looked at by somebody who needs to see it. You should take that advice too. Post your concerns about bans here. https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst135680_The-Official-Halo-4-Ban-Thread.aspx
That seems like a heavily flawed system. Since not many people talk on Halo 4, the people that DO talk during games, whether it be to themselves or friends, end up getting muted by players who don’t talk, which is what I believe happened. Also, am I wrong to assume that a ban stated to be 1 week in length should only last 1 week? It shouldn’t be any longer unless more evidence surfaces that you were abusing the voice communications in some way. And then it should pop up as another message. “Due to extra evidence against you, your account’s voice ban will be extended to 2 weeks.” Or something of that nature.
> That seems like a heavily flawed system. Since not many people talk on Halo 4, the people that DO talk during games, whether it be to themselves or friends, end up getting muted by players who don’t talk, which is what I believe happened. Also, am I wrong to assume that a ban stated to be 1 week in length should only last 1 week? It shouldn’t be any longer unless more evidence surfaces that you were abusing the voice communications in some way. And then it should pop up as another message. “Due to extra evidence against you, your account’s voice ban will be extended to 2 weeks.” Or something of that nature.
You can’t get voice banned again while already banned, nor will any mutes from that ban carry over to your next ban.
The game hasn’t been out long enough to see if voices ban are always TWO weeks or not, but time will tell.
I say two weeks because by default, they are two weeks, the message pop-up in-game is incorrect.