Mastering Valorant: A Guide to Muting in 65 Characters
Valorant, a popular tactical shooter game, gives players the option to mute others to maintain a positive and focused gaming experience.
We will explore what muting entails in Valorant, how to effectively mute players through various methods, and why it is important for players to consider muting toxic individuals.
We will discuss alternatives to muting and the potential consequences of not utilizing this feature in the game. Whether you are a seasoned player or new to Valorant, this guide will provide valuable insights on managing player interactions in the virtual battlefield.
Contents
- Key Takeaways:
- What Is Valorant?
- What Is Muting in Valorant?
- How to Mute Players in Valorant?
- How to Mute Voice and Text Chat Separately?
- How to Unmute Players in Valorant?
- Why Should Players Consider Muting in Valorant?
- Are There Any Alternatives to Muting in Valorant?
- What Are the Consequences of Not Muting in Valorant?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- How to Mute in Valorant?
- 1. How do I mute a player in Valorant?
- 2. Can I mute all players at once in Valorant?
- 3. How do I unmute a player in Valorant?
- 4. Can I still receive text chat messages from a muted player?
- 5. Will muting a player affect their gameplay in Valorant?
- 6. Are there any other ways to mute a player in Valorant?
Key Takeaways:
What Is Valorant?
Valorant game was released on April 7, 2020, by Riot Games. It is a free-to-play competitive 5v5 first-person shooter game with visual character elements that are similar to the overhead 2D game called League of Legends. Best thought of as a cross between Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Overwatch, it is a tactical shooter with slower gameplay and has a character agent system, where each agent has unique abilities.
The in-game story takes place across the planet Earth, as it tries to recover from a Radiant Crisis, a mysterious worldwide event known as the First Light. An element called Radionite was discovered, granting superpowers to certain individuals and creating a diverse caste of Agents who abilities and signature weapons, making them…special, but it triggered subsequent chaos. In the VALORANT universe, “VALORANT” is an international task force, formed to respond and react to the crisis…
What Is Muting in Valorant?
Muting in Valorant means blocking or disabling the voice (mic) and video (camera) communications coming from another player during the game. If you feel that a teammate is toxic or annoying, or is simply providing too many auditory or visual distractions in a match, you can choose to turn off their communication until the end or later in the match. A mute logo appears over their player icon, name in chat, and voice indicators, letting you know you and they are both now muted to one another. This allows you to focus more on the game and achieve better results. For example, in the heat of the battle of a match in Haven, do you need to hear your teammate’s toddler crying during their Overwatch win?
There is no way to mute voice chat that I know of in the Valorant Settings menu. Instead, hit the F9 or Radial menu that works for you according to the navigation graphics above, open the Scoreboard, and press the arrow keys and the enter key to click on Audio and Text icons of the disrespectful player. When you click on the speaker icon that currently shows blasting airwaves, then this mic mute logo, a small red circle with a line through it appears over the speaker icon indicating mute.
How to Mute Players in Valorant?
You can mute players in Valorant by clicking on the bottom right scoreboard audio icons of the malicious teammate. This not only silences player chat but also ping and chat wheel messages received from them. If a particularly abusive player messages you in chat, simply right-click on their name in the chat window, then click on their username to open their profile, and click Mute
to obtain the same desired mute effect.
In-game Muting
In Valorant, head to the social panel which is shaped like a speech bubble to the left of the shop in the game. Locate them from the list of teammates. Click on the mute button that is the speaker icon, next to your teammate’s name. Their icon will have a slash through the icon if they are muted and you will not hear them. Perform the same operation to unmute. To mute/unmute from the in-game voice chat screen, Control+Y must be used.
Muting from the Scoreboard
You can also mute from the scoreboard. This gives you a bit more flexibility if you want to mute someone after they’ve finished talking because using the voice chat interface includes some acknowledgement that you have engaged with it. Muting on the scoreboard allows you to autonomously control when you want to listen to the messaging of other players.
To access the scoreboard, simply press the Tab key, on the PC version of Valorant. The scoreboard features everyone chatting and talking, as well as the ability to silence specific players. You can mute or unmute someone by clicking once on the mic icon on the person’s scoreboard box or typing /mute followed by the person’s character name.
Azhelle Wade, communications strategist, during an interview for the website TurkiyeRadyoTelevizyonu, explained the benefits of the scoreboard interface for voice chat on Valorant. “Use the scoreboard function to mute an agent she says. “If a teammate is trolling, especially if they are gaming on a console with the tv volume up or some other obvious sign they are playing around instead of playing to win – mute chat with them and continue to do you! If the agent gets a success and the team wins, perhaps they will join in on their own time and correct their ways”.
Muting from the Social Panel
You can mute players from the social panel by clicking on the profile icon of the offending player while viewing the scoreboard. Then toggle mute to on by hitting the speaker sound/mic icon. The social panel is the screen that was formerly the escape/cancel menu and displays the options for players in the upper left corner of the screen as exemplified in the following screenshot.
When you are in the game, now it appears by clicking on the two faces at the bottom left of your screen, you will bring up a list of all players in the lobby. This lets you more easily mute other gamers.
This is by far an easier way to mute players during a match than using the scoreboard during gameplay which requires you to have died. Especially for tournaments, it is best to access from the main menu.
How to Mute Voice and Text Chat Separately?
You are asked to press Caps Lock button within Valorant game interface. Muting voice chat and text chat separately turns off different components of having to read and listen through a player you wish to Mute in Valorant. When you mute someone in Valorant, you mute both their voice and text chat communication.
Whether a player is muted in Valorant (another player is not listening or reading a player’s communication), can be found by checking if the mute icon featuring a microphone with a line through it appears next to their name in the chat box after asking them to talk to confirm that communication is blocked. Text is automatically muted once you mute another player’s voice. You do not have to press a push-to-mute or any specific button to mute text chat. To see if all text is muted, check the icon located on the far right of the chat box and see if the conversation stops after pressing the voice mute button. In almost all cases the text mute activates alongside voice mute.
How to Unmute Players in Valorant?
On Windows, bring up the Teammates screen, click on Audio Options, then disable the Mute All property and turn on the Voice Chat Channels property. Mute all from the game (Windows): You can press Ctrl + M to toggle mute on and off. This will mute/unmute teammates and opponents.
You can mute/unmute specific players in their Audio Options.
Mute all from the game (settings): Open the audio settings and manually adjust the volume for each element.
To unmute all teams from the Deus Impala (Windows) menu, press F5, then click on Audio Options, Voice Chat Channels and then select the desired team.
Teammate and opponent players have to be individually unmuted as needed. Mute all from the game (game settings): You can press F6 to toggle mute on and off. This operation mutes/unmutes the entirety of teams.
Why Should Players Consider Muting in Valorant?
Players should consider muting in Valorant if someone on their team is being toxic, distracting, or abusive. They should consider muting someone on the other team if they are being confrontational, distraction, or abusive. They should consider muting all players in a match (including teammates) if they are playing ranked or tournament matches where cheater activity is more common, and they need to avoid receiving callouts and game help in deathmatch, unrated environments where getting critical feedback is not necessary, or simply if they find battle chat in any mode to be overwhelming.
While multitasking in competitive multiplayer matches can improve a player’s performance, auditory stimulus is the most basic and ultimately the most significant. Disabling the default voice chat button in the controls can help avoid needing to mute everyone in Valorant.
Using the Mute All icon in the Scoreboard is the fastest way to mute all players in Valorant. Turning off voice chat is a good way to avoid needing to mute everyone in Valorant.
Avoiding Toxicity
Muting your showdown and agent voice channels is the primary way of avoiding toxicity in Valorant. There will always be some players who may not be as committed or as serious about a game as you and who might tend to quickly abandon a losing cause. It is possible to circumvent this issue by muting certain distracting teammates. However, if they cross a certain line or are excessively obnoxious, it is probably better to mute their comms altogether and deal with them in the post-game chat, if necessary.
Focusing on Gameplay
The best way to mute in Valorant according to players is to focus on gameplay while waiting for the round to finish. This is because distracting oneself by looking through menus for the other team’s VoIP (Voice-over Internet Protocol) can disrupt the game’s flow, since situations can change rapidly within the game. The other teams’ tips may actually be helpful tactically, so some players find them interesting and helpful while in the game.
Improving Mental Health
Muting in Valorant helps to improve mental health by allowing users to avoid negative communication with strangers they do not know. By mollycoddling online users and insulating them from direct disputes and disagreements it can contribute to the fostering of a helpless attitude that values safety and restriction of freedoms over the free exchange of opinions.
Ann Shoket, author of The Big Life, which says Unlike a team of competitors, a real-life team of friends can help foster an environment where each player shines on their own unique strengths, without the sometimes hurtful chatter of valiant teammates. It is not only disagreements that are left off voice chat. Assuming they are relevant to gameplay, the best means of complimenting someone on a good move, for them to learn from and get acquainted with the game, is left unused. Hello and goodbye in different languages can only do so much to express emotions.
Emma-Ruth Arnaz-Pemberton, founder of Impact Marathon Series and an idea she upholds is Did you win? Did you have fun?. A platform chatty enough to chat about stalemate duels also gives the possibility to freely chat a friendly chess metaphor like Looks like we’ve both camped and forgotten about the bomb. So the object of the game has gone unachieved. Shall we call this one a draw?.
Are There Any Alternatives to Muting in Valorant?
Yes, there are alternatives to muting in Valorant. You can prevent unwanted communications while avoiding potential offensive behaviour by using text chat, at least until more options are added. In a game such as Valorant, umplicated voice communication plays a heavy role in success due to the numerous influentanyl decisions one must execute northwest to think about voice chat muting tlatfire.
Muting your teammates isn’t an alternative that’s actively encouraged by Riot Games, but it’s possible, in case it’s needed. To disable voice communications from specific players that are toxic, abusive, or just unwanted, and only to stop them from specific anti-social acts like using a wrongful transphobic or racist slur, you will need to change to your desired key bind for ‘Voice to team’ in the control settings. And then, you will need to go to the Player List screen and from there use the mouse to click to unmute by click the microphone icon that is next to the player you are looking to unmute.
Using the Ping System
Valorant introduced a Comms Wheel in its 1.15 Patch. This means players in PC and Mobile versions of Valorant can turn off both their microphone and audio inputs, but can still use the Comms Wheel to communicate with teammates.
The Comms Wheel in Valorant includes over 200 combinations of radiocomms, which makes the mute-bound wheel a viable way to communicate a wide range of needs and strategies. This is the best way to mute in valorant without entirely losing communication with your teammates.
Communicating with a Pre-made Team
There is no feature in Valorant for muting the in-game voice chat, so we suggest using a platform other than the game to talk to your pre-made team. Not having your in-game communication muted is important, as it allows you to chat to your pre-made team, and they can communicate with you.
If you are in Discord or another service, go to Settings and Keybinds to see if you have a push-to-mute keybind setup. Functioning as a push-to-talk key, the keybind will be automatically implemented even if you are not wanting to speak with your teammates. The Tilde (~) key is a common choice for push-to-mute, making it easy to temporarily mute your microphone during Valorant gameplay.
What Are the Consequences of Not Muting in Valorant?
The consequences of not muting in Valorant include missing communication from more toxic and less skilled teammates. If a team has shown they can communicate constructively and provide helpful information in the round, muting them too can hinder the team. Having positive reinforcement and building others’ morale is crucial, muting ignores that aspect of the game. One of the developers of Valorant stated that cross-region voice communications are incoming, which will allow for common language barriers in some areas.
Negative Impact on Gameplay
- If an opponent is playing obnoxiously well, it can throw off your team’s focus and potentially your own power to make critical plays.
- By keeping your chat focused inward, you deny your opponent the ability to throw you off verbally.
- If you find yourself losing focus because of a particularly annoying opponent, you can mute them to prevent them from getting in your head.
- The best-case scenario, of course, is to simply disable the chat to avoid seeing their comments entirely.
Negative Impact on Mental Health
Muting in Valorant can have a negative impact on your mental health in two ways. First, muting bad teammates fosters a toxic gameplay environment because it sends a message of superiority to the rest of the team. Multiple in-game studies have shown that if a player thinks they are losing, they are more likely to produce toxic material. If other players have muted you, this can make them play even worse as they respond more toxically to any perceived provocation regardless of how true it is.
Second, mutes exit you from the social game network which is known to increase social networks by building relationships within otherwise isolated or lonely individuals. Muting should only be utilized if the toxic or unnecessary impacts of the poor team play conversation are overwhelmingly outweighed by the downsides of on-going interaction with the team. As such, experts recommend only muting other players if they are expected to further negatively impact your gameplay.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to Mute in Valorant?
Muting is an essential feature in Valorant that allows players to block out unwanted communication from specific players. Here are some frequently asked questions about how to mute in Valorant.
1. How do I mute a player in Valorant?
To mute a player in Valorant, you can press the TAB key to bring up the scoreboard, then right-click on the player’s name and select ‘mute’ from the drop-down menu.
2. Can I mute all players at once in Valorant?
Yes, you can mute all players at once by going to the audio settings menu and selecting the ‘Mute All’ option. This will mute all players in the current game session.
3. How do I unmute a player in Valorant?
If you want to unmute a player in Valorant, you can go to the audio settings menu or use the scoreboard and select the player’s name, then click on ‘unmute’.
4. Can I still receive text chat messages from a muted player?
No, muting a player in Valorant will also block their text chat messages. If you want to receive messages from a muted player, you will need to unmute them.
5. Will muting a player affect their gameplay in Valorant?
No, muting a player will not affect their gameplay in any way. They will still be able to play and communicate with other players, except for the player who has muted them.
6. Are there any other ways to mute a player in Valorant?
Yes, apart from using the scoreboard, you can also mute a player by opening the social menu and selecting the player’s name, then clicking on the mute button next to their name.