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The Sweet Sound

October 5, 2020 by Tim

I always pick random matchmaking with people over playing with bots, but if someone comes in with their mic on, I find I immediately “nope” right to the mute button. I have no patience for pretending to be interested for the sake of small talk anymore nor does it fascinate me how stoned a stranger might be at that moment in time. I want all of the benefits of playing with actual human beings, just without all of the tiring social elements. I have enough friends. I’m at my quota, and it’s exhausting enough just maintaining those relationships.

I spent hours grinding for this new piece of gear, and an AI bot doesn’t give a shit, so just quietly admire my cosmetics, and let’s enjoy the game in silence. Is that too much to ask?


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Soag
Soag
4 years ago

SHOW OFF!
It also sounds shallow… Then again, I don’t play with people from the US so I have no idea how those interactions really go.
Plus it probably highly depends on the game. Some might require coordination and voice chat should be useful in those, while others might just be some shittalking (I heard plenty about you, CoD community :P).

Tim, I don’t get one thing. You say you reached ‘friends’ quota’, so I guess that’s talking about in game as well. How come you create a lobby with strangers and not those friends? What am I missing?

Mino
Mino
4 years ago
Reply to  Soag

No, it does sound rather shallow, like demanding interaction on your own terms rather than meeting someway in the middle as two rational adults would normally.

leduk
leduk
4 years ago
Reply to  Soag

well, I know that feel, since friends arent always available when you want for the game you want…

Paul
Paul
4 years ago
Reply to  Soag

I agree with this sentiment; on a game requiring solid coordination and tactics I really struggle with ‘randoms’. Warzone is a prime example, where there is such variety in playstyles that having a familiar group is key.
I used to play a lot of Overwatch and it was a real mixed bag of toxicity and stoners.

TomB
TomB
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul

I only play with friends for most team shooters. Stoners are annoying, but the teenage rage monsters and the racist aholes are far more of an immediate ‘GTFO’ scenario. Toxic idiots are just not worth the moments of anyone’s life to call out.

The rates of people (on random matchups) being drunk or stoned has gone way up lately as far as I can tell. Even some on the friends list, but at least most of mine don’t talk to much offensive crap.

maciver
maciver
4 years ago
Reply to  TomB

I rarely find any racists but the worst for me are the pre-teens and teens. They all seem to be assholes at best. 99% of my friends are older non-gamers so I have to play with randos most times. The fucking 11 year old SCREAMING “PWNED” with all of the bass of a screamqueen is enough to say fuck it and leave. This is why I almost never play online only anymore. If there were games with special age 30 and up areas where you HAVE to validate your age to join I would be more active.

Robert Loughrey
Robert Loughrey
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul

Right? My group isnt going to play warzone at all unless we have enough of us to have only one pubbie at most.

Eldest Gruff
Eldest Gruff
4 years ago
Reply to  Soag

I’m assuming he’s just talking about personally, and not some sort of system thing, due to the “it’s exhausting enough” note. I can completely relate. You only have so much time, energy, emotional availability, etc, especially once you get older and have kids. Want to know why people “get boring” when we have kids? That’s why.

TBH, that’s why I don’t mind the “chat with a phone” bs that Nintendo’s got going on, ’cause I never use it. Tried for a while, and it just was never, ever worth it.

Croi
Croi
4 years ago
Reply to  Tim

I feel you, Tim. As a father of two myself I get it. I got all my friends into Sea of Thieves and I tend to be the one playing the least because I don’t have a solid, buttoned down time. The only exception is Friday nights after 7PM, which is my dedicated gaming time with a friends…but we generally play Jack Box games or Among Us (now).

maciver
maciver
4 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Could you advocate for games with areas for ages 30+ so we can avoid the annoying little shits? Have smaller quests/encounters for people who work and have families that dont have 12 hours to sit and complete one thing.

Soag
Soag
4 years ago
Reply to  Tim

No need to be so bitter with those quotation marks, really. You’re only projecting assumptions with that. And not correct ones, might I add. You just layed down the exact same scenario of mine. The only difference being is I came to a conclusion that jumping in on a quick match is a waste of time. There’s no guarantee you’ll make it in the small time frame you have and something unexpected might always come up in a household. I noticed you completely omitted the point about in-game friends. Instead talked about your close circle of friends and how they… Read more »

leduk
leduk
4 years ago
Reply to  Soag

seriously, audio with strangers for random games? no thanks.

GarlynSav
GarlynSav
4 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Same about being married full time job etc. but I give people a shot. Specially if it is about coordination and mechanics when a game doesn’t have good communication without a headset. Want tougher runs. Need to communicate. But I have muted my fair share.

leduk
leduk
4 years ago
Reply to  Tim

usually we manage to do this once a month, scheduled. Because it’s indeed very hard.

no thanks nintendo
no thanks nintendo
4 years ago

“I want all of the benefits of playing with actual human beings”

Isn’t one of those benefits being able to coordinate strategies over voice chat, though?

Daminica
Daminica
4 years ago

Coordinate strategies?

What witchcraft is this, it’s always only the enemy team that does that.

raven0ak
raven0ak
4 years ago

if you mean lol noob learn to play etc as coordinated strategies yes …but team of strangers with mics most likely include idiots, brats, stoners and other trash of society

TomB
TomB
4 years ago
Reply to  raven0ak

…and some very judgmental folks too. I’ve nothing against most stoners. They are time wasting and I admit they annoy me, but they mostly aren’t toxic jerks. Brats… yeah… best way of dealing with this was a mod on one of the Arma servers a few years back when a 12 or 13 year old foul mouth would just not shut it down…. “The server rules say nobody under the age of 16 may use the audio channel. So I am kicking you now, will ban you if I must. Come back when your balls drop.” The angry jerks and… Read more »

The rAt
The rAt
4 years ago
Reply to  raven0ak

What’s wrong with brats? A little mustard, maybe some chopped onion, and they’re delicious.

Bwauder
Bwauder
4 years ago
Reply to  The rAt

You need to make sure they’ve been thoroughly washed and scrubbed before preparing them, who knows where or what they were doing before harvesting.

Joel
Joel
4 years ago

I only turn my mic on when I find someone actually playing and coordinating will actually improve the game. It’s so so so rare. I have a small “friends” list of folks from Battlefield that I’ve bumped into, and that’s about it.

leduk
leduk
4 years ago

did you meant “drawback” instead of benefit?

Theoni
Theoni
4 years ago

100% agree with that. It’s less that I have maxed my friend quota and more I just have an utter failing at interacting with other humans, but still want to feel like I’m a part of the human race, even by a small percentage.

Plus you don’t have spell check irl, and I’d rather not prove I’m an utter idiot by opening my mouth and getting tongue-tied when I can just type and edit as required. Much easier.

Huh
Huh
4 years ago
Reply to  Theoni

Your reason is the same as Tim’s, you’re just describing it differently. If he really had such a high number of friends, he wouldn’t need to group with random strangers in the first place.

Eldest Gruff
Eldest Gruff
4 years ago
Reply to  Huh

I… think you’re completely missing the point.

Guest
Guest
4 years ago
Reply to  Tim

You have more than 10 close friends and call yourself an introvert? Interesting…

nealithi
nealithi
4 years ago

You know what?
I prefer this version of player. I have been in too many MMO’s where the chat is either drivel. Sorry I live in NJ I really don’t care about the coffee shop in a Chicago suburb.
Or the one that really irks me is the guy that insists everyone has a mic and talks or he is out of there when the match is underway. Usually when it is a five versus five match. So they automatically put you at a disadvantage.

TuffMelon
TuffMelon
4 years ago

Voice chat is always gonna be one of those things that sits on both ends of the spectrum of value. Its great to be able to listen to genuine interactions, but then you have to listen to people raging, people forgetting their mic is set to ‘always on’, people badly attempting incredibly crude humor that borderlines on bigotry, people literally just saying slurs… etc, etc. Being able to work together with a team of people to accomplish a goal is great, i love doing that sort of stuff, i played the crap out of L4D on expert for example, but… Read more »

TomB
TomB
4 years ago
Reply to  TuffMelon

Same here (L4D expert). Playing with the right friends is pretty great.

Another annoyance I could really see DIAF is the guy who thinks we only have the audio channel so he can be a DJ and play his favorite music so nobody can talk. I’d personally like it if every beat of his music resulted in a mallet to the happy sack. That’s about the level of education these knowing a-hats need.

Find friends, stick to them. If you don’t want to talk to friends, purge your list.

'Drew Bergy
'Drew Bergy
4 years ago

I have had to listen to my son’s trash talk on his games with others for too long to want to listen to listen to any of someone else in a game either, so I’d be muting them immediately as well. As far as coordinating within a game, I would be willing to do that only with others I already know, but leave me alone in that regard otherwise.

Unagiman
Unagiman
4 years ago

I don’t play a ton of online games and the ones I have don’t usually require a massive amount of planning/strategy. I did have a few really great experiences with people talking in Battleborn back when that game was popular/existent. A few times we’d have someone on our team, usually the only person with a microphone calling out strategy and encouragement to other players.

Huubawha
Huubawha
4 years ago

MeatKoala?

Leon
Leon
4 years ago

Oh, to be antisocial…….

Phil
Phil
4 years ago
Reply to  Leon

asocial, I don’t understand why people confuse antisocial and asocial so much. asocial : avoid interaction, antisocial : contrary to the law and customs of society.

Logan
Logan
4 years ago
Reply to  Phil

Because it’s become the accepted ussage over the years, “Dr. Phil”. xP

Someone said it (mistakenly or not), and it jusy ‘stuck’.

VibrantEvolution
VibrantEvolution
4 years ago

Maybe they don’t want to be your friend either. Maybe they would just like to discuss ingame tactics. Muting em after a simple “hi”, well you’ll never know, you’ll just keep assuming they want to be social.

You could have just said “I want to play with humans cuz sometimes it feels like a bot is being controlled by a hamster running over the keyboard” then I would have agreed

Logan
Logan
4 years ago

He wasn’t being litteral. >_>

“Hi” was just an example of ‘typical mutterings from random players”.

Croi
Croi
4 years ago

Agreed. I want to PLAY with humans…I don’t want to HEAR other humans. If it isn’t someone with sinus alignment trouble heavy breathing into the mic with a baby screaming in the background while a smoke detector is beeping, then it’s someone screaming racial slurs at people it doesn’t make sense to throw that slur at while blaring the WORST music of all time and getting high.

Halosty
Halosty
4 years ago

Sounds like you want better bots who act more like people (but not too much like people)

Spade
Spade
4 years ago

For some reason I never hear anyone talking in voice, so seems weird to me that anyone would actually mute someone.
Must be that US players actually talk on voice, but in EU we have much of a language barrier?

Leonick
Leonick
4 years ago
Reply to  Spade

I don’t know, most of western Europe can speak English with little problem, but yea, my experience is the same. People online talk about how obnoxious voice chat is while I can’t recall the last time someone used the voice chat…

FITCamaro
FITCamaro
4 years ago

This.

Alcor
Alcor
4 years ago

If you’re playing a game where team coordination is important, you’re sabotaging your team by not being willing to talk to them. If the game doesn’t involve that, mute away.

Mr_Meng
Mr_Meng
4 years ago

Sooooo basically you want bots with better AI.

bubba
bubba
4 years ago
Reply to  Mr_Meng

Or humans with better I

Lord Circe
Lord Circe
4 years ago

The problem is that bots are always generally dumb in a few specific ways.

Humans, on the other hand, are just smart enough to be dumb in a beautiful array of random ways.

Sianist
Sianist
4 years ago

MeatKoala1278 … sounds like a botter-name .p

AlexAngryguy
AlexAngryguy
4 years ago

Imagine having actual friends that can play videogames with your or share your same taste and not play games that you totally despise………and my friend ask me why I don’t play with them….cause we never have the same games, the same consoles and we do, our working arounds don’t match.

The rAt
The rAt
4 years ago

Forget matchmaking, I think you just nailed my sentiments about people in general right now.

Karrde
Karrde
4 years ago

From a tactical gameplay standpoint, thats annoying as fuck. I like to be able to ask my teammates “do you need healing, what are you looking for, I think that place over there would be a good place to reconoiter, watch those wrist rockets” and whatnot. I do get that randos can be annoying, but maybe its worse on consoles, idk.

Jeff P
Jeff P
4 years ago
Reply to  Karrde

I do it only if I am playing solo. If I am on playing with friends, I am on a private chat group.

Jeff P
Jeff P
4 years ago

I’m with you. I like Destiny in that I don’t have to be forced to hear you. I actually, physically jumped when I heard someone talking on Squadrons over the weekend… I was like…. WTF?! Someone’s talking? I’m done with that… Mute mute mute mute mute…

Steeeve
Steeeve
4 years ago

Hah, yesss, Humans are marginally better than bots, but 99% of the time you don’t want to hear them. I like games that have commands to help coordinate without speaking.

Merendel
Merendel
4 years ago

well to be fair anyone named meatkoala should probably start the game auto muted :p Also anyone with a pop culture name followed by a string of numbers or a not so clever innuendo.

Logan
Logan
4 years ago

If they’re actually willing to be team players, I don’t mind it. Even for just a random round or two session (made my first ‘friends: on 360 way back from some team racing games thay way).

But it’s the “always on” type i can’t stand! Yes.. i get you want to play an online game. NO i do NOT need, nor want, to hear your family conversations in the background as the only thing worthwhile registering on your mic (my luck, usually some foreign language too… or at least sounds it, as garbled as some mics are)!