Cover And Thumbnail Image Courtesy: Counter-Strike
In a recent blog titled 'Squelching the Noise' CS:GO developers have tackled the problem related to communication abuse in-game. Though there are already multiple options available with players to “control their exposure to other players’ avatars” and despite them being useful, “they have the downside of squelching communication indiscriminately.”
So to introduce a more robust mechanic to tackle these abusers, the developers have been “working on a new system that will work more precisely.”
After the new system is fully developed, a warning will be given to those players who receive more number of abuse reports than other players. If these players continue to abuse verbally and ignore the warning, they’ll receive a penalty - “they will be muted by all other players by default.”
This penalty imposed upon the abuser will “remain until the player earns enough XP to remove the penalty.” However other players who play with the penalised player “can choose to manually unmute the user.”
The blog goes on to state that,
“Because the new system is driven by reports, it lets players establish their own standards for communication and ensure that their fellow players receive anonymous feedback when they’re out of line.”
The new system has already started tracking player reports, and the developers have urged the community to get into the “habit of reporting abusive players when you come across them.”
As of now, players who play more CS:GO or the ones that report less frequently will have more weightage behind their reports. So automatically the “accounts that generate no XP or spam reports will have little to no impact.”
It is still early to say how effective and efficient this system to catch a communication abuser is, but the passing of information, verbal coordination while executing, and the general ability to guide or pass tips to help a teammate are crucial factors of the game and the players who abuse this need to be dealt with in a proper manner. This is a good initiative by the developers, let’s see how fruitful this new system turns out to be.
