‘CS: GO’ update: Valve will soon be muting toxic players by default

There’s a new “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” feature that is aimed at making the game more enjoyable and less toxic to players. Valve announced that toxic players will eventually be muted by default.

The muting feature is aimed at preventing known toxic players from abusing other “CS: GO” gamers, Slash Gear reported. However, the muting won’t happen out of the blue since players suspected of abusive behavior will be given a warning at first to give them a chance to change their ways.

Valve said that with the new feature in place, non-abusive players won’t be preemptively blocked by other players who just want to avoid toxic interactions. The penalty will target gamers who received more abuse reports than others.

While players that are deemed toxic by the new system will be muted by default, other gamers can still unmute them so they’ll still be able to talk if necessary, Engadget reported. However, they’ll remain in that default mute state until they manage to earn enough XP to unlock or remove the penalty.

“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 CS: GO team announced.

The team did not exactly reveal the threshold number of abuse reports before a player is considered potentially toxic and issued a warning. However, it was mentioned that complaints made by “CS: GO” gamers who play the game frequently but seldom make abuse reports will be given more weight. This is likely done to prevent some players from gaming the system.

On the other hand, accounts “that generate no XP and/or spam reports will have little to no impact.” Valve has not yet announced when it will be sending warnings to suspected toxic players.

However, the company said that it is already tracking abuse reports under the new system. Valve is encouraging gamers to report toxic players for “Abusive Communication or Profile.”

“Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” is a multiplayer first-person shooter developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve. It was released for PS3, Xbox 360, Windows and OS X in August 2012 while its Linux version was released in 2014.