Learn How to Block Someone in Pubg Without Adding Them | Step-by-Step Guide
Are you a PUBG player looking to control your interactions with other players in the game?
We explore the different ways you can interact with players in PUBG, including in-game voice and text chat, adding friends, and blocking unwanted individuals.
Find out the reasons why you might want to block someone in PUBG, the consequences of doing so, and how to block someone without adding them.
Learn more about managing your PUBG experience effectively.
Contents
- Key Takeaways:
- What Is PUBG?
- What Are the Different Ways to Interact with Players in PUBG?
- What Is Blocking Someone in PUBG?
- Why Would Someone Want to Block Another Player in PUBG?
- How to Block Someone in PUBG Without Adding Them?
- What Are the Consequences of Blocking Someone in PUBG?
- Can Blocked Players Be Unblocked?
- What Other Measures Can Be Taken to Avoid Unwanted Interactions in PUBG?
- Frequently Asked Questions
Key Takeaways:
What Is PUBG?
PUBG stands for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, a blockbuster battle royale game where 100 players each fly over an 8×8 kilometer island where they must score weapons and supplies and then fight until only one player lasting. It is an online multiplayer game, developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of the parent company Krafton Game Union. The game went popular in early 2017 and saw significant uptake in 2020 and 2021.
What Are the Different Ways to Interact with Players in PUBG?
The different ways to interact with players in PUBG are divided into the following categories:
- Members of your team.
- Your crew.
- Your avatar or a spectator who is observing the match without participating at all.
- Random near teammates or opponents.
- Other friends that you add to your friend list.
Overall, teams are where you have the most positive interactions. You can help each other get better weapons or just help each other stay safe. The following are types of interactions with people outside of your team:
- Interactions with your crew are particularly helpful in monitoring your competition. The building settings pagewhen you have teamed up with regular players on a long-time basis
- With a PUBG block without adding users, near teammates usually lack the camaraderie you get from being in the team channel. Blocking near users means you see and communicate with players who are near you but do not really help you in combat. You can see their general location and type and read text messages, but that is usually it. The best way to interact with these players is to not try to interact with them.
- With a PUBG block without adding users, these players still have the HIDE button to ignore and mute players they don’t want to see or interact with.
- Interactions with friends are focused on avoiding people who are not on your friends list. While fun private rooms with friends with various settings can positively affect game quality, you will miss out on many of those friends-only challenges and laughs.
In-game Voice Chat
In PUBG Mobile, voice chat enables players to speak with their game teammates during the match, improving coordination and gameplay as a whole. Players can only use voice chat with players they have added to their friend list in the game (these players are called guests) and not with regular in-game teammates who they have not invited as friends.
If you want to block a player from voice chat, so you don’t hear their voice and they don’t hear yours, remove them from your friend list. For the guest player who will not receive a team invite for the next match, there may still be some merit in accepting a friend request and then getting added to the team, so the function can be used in a match or two before removing themselves from the friend list.
To further control who can voice chat with you in PUBG Mobile, you can modify the in-game settings:
- Open the Settings Menu inside the PUBG Mobile App.
- Select the Audio Tab.
- Set the Voice Channel to Team-Only so that you only hear voice audio from your team members during the match.
In-game Text Chat
In-game text chat can completely be turned off, but most PUBG Mobile players use this as a form of getting to know their peers and allies. The game uses a simple three-dot algorithm to detect players who spam and mute them from voice chat features of the game. The flow for this is as follows:
- From the Home screen click on Settings
- Click on the Speaker logo for Sound Settings
- Click on the Speaker All toggle to switch this feature on and off
This will mute calls as well as microphone operations used for spamming.
Adding Friends
PUBG users can add friends to their in-game friends lists and block people they do not add. To add friends in PUBG Mobile, a user can search for a player’s PUBG username via the search function in the friend icon called Add Friend. Hit the friend icon at the main screen and then click on the Add Friends button to paste the username into the search bar. Choose their profile and press Add as friend. The added player will now appear in the friend’s friend list.
What Is Blocking Someone in PUBG?
Blocking someone in PUBG is a popular game feature that bans or restricts a user’s ability to communicate with or interact with other players. This is typically conducted by muting communications, physically impairing the abusive player like in the game Quarantine, or restricting player movement and view angles. The intent of blocking and banning features is to lessen the aggressiveness of a video game atmosphere and to allow civil interaction between non-abusive players, common in virtually all popular online multiplayer games.
Why Would Someone Want to Block Another Player in PUBG?
Someone would want to block another player in PUBG in order to avoid them in future games. It is counterproductive to add a user as a friend in order to block them, as this prevents them from being added as a friend in the future after socializing in the game and forming a positive impression which then blocks unwanted contacts in the game.
To Avoid Toxic Behavior
Social media engagement, anonymity, and the human desire for competition and success have made online games popular venues for harassment, abuse and other toxic behavior. PUBG Corporation, the developers and publishers of PUBG, have responded to the growing toxicity on PUBG by partnering with Fair Play Alliance with the goal of developing strategies to reduce toxic behavior and to foster healthy gaming on PUBG and other participating platforms. The PUBG Mobile Fair Play and User Safety team has implemented features that allow users to block or mute someone who is engaging in toxic behavior. Unfortunately, the method to block someone without sending a friend request is not apparent in PUBG’s in-game menus, meaning you are unable to block someone without first adding them as a friend. The method I have listed above of blocking the user directly in-game has been the only alternative so far, but does not work for all devices.
To Avoid Harassment or Bullying
Harassment or bullying in all fields has been increasing and the gaming field is not exempt from this. Players may face harassment, bullying, or verbal abuse while in-game from other players they have had contact with. As voice chat and messaging features expand in online games, using them to report abusive players has started to seem insufficient to solve harassment issues. In this case, blocking only is often the best route.
Harassment or bullying is often seen by developers in cases where players are communicating directly with each other in the game. Be it during voice chat, while text chatting, or when players’ usernames are exposed. The worst type is harassment or bullying on video game livestreams and the internet. Another concern for avoiding such behavior falls under data privacy laws. If you feel harassed or bullied by a player during PUBG, blocking them and therefore not allowing them to contact or follow them in-game is your easiest solution. It is not foolproof, but preventing them from doing that on an existing account provides a small layer of protection.
To Avoid Cheating or Exploiting
Tencent has a zero-tolerance policy for cheating in PUBG Mobile. Liam Rosenthal from Gamepur says that when joining a game, cheaters are blocked instead of supported. Because of this any users who attempt to utilize third-party applications to manipulate the game’s system will be reported to the security team. This is under the Operator Intervention Policy which automatically blocks the user or prevents them from playing when fraudulent activity is detected.
How to Block Someone in PUBG Without Adding Them?
As of my last analysis in October 2021, it is not possible to block someone in PUBG Mobile without adding them as a friend. You can only block people by adding them as a friend first. After you have added them as a friend, you may then block the user.
Go to the friend list to unblock after you have had them as a friend. The user needs to be added first as a friend in PUBG.
Here are the steps to block someone in PUBG:
- Add their username as a friend.
- Go to the friends tab in PUBG Mobile.
- Select the friend whose chat option you wish to block.
- Go to the lower-left of the screen where you see their name, followed by Chat.
- Tap on Chat and select Disable Chat.
This means you have blocked their texts until you enable chat in settings. To remove someone from your friends list, select their profile in the friends tab. Then slide your finger to remove her from your friends list.
In-game Blocking
There is no blocking functionality in PUBG Mobile yet blocking is available in PUBG PC and PUBG console versions. In these versions, the last person who killed you can be added to a block list so you will not be matched with them again. This only happens by choosing the option to add them as a friend during the post-game screen.
Prospective teamers or aggrieved players could find this desirable not to be paired again with the same user. To undo the blocking, as long as the black list is empty, only the blocked person needs to be added as a friend again through their username or ID number.
Reporting a Player
Pubg players may block a player they would like to avoid playing with or create room between by reporting them. Reporting a player to Pubg mobile officials is necessary when a player is cheating, showing offensive conduct, in-game message harassment, using external assembly mechanisms to play the game beyond the normal intent partially or fully. Anything in the gaming environment that hinders the normal gaming environment can be reported as it is in all social platforms. This could include bullying other players, uploading inappropriate content, or abusing in-game services and can be reported for proper handling by Pubg user service officials.
Using Third-party Tools
A third possibility to block someone without adding them is to use third-party tools, but there is no reliable source that can help the user accomplish this. Please note that the use of third-party tools that interfere with PUBG gameplay is forbidden. The official guidelines regarding the use of these tools have been posted, and some players have been banned due to these restrictions. Consequently, using third-party tools is not a good method of blocking someone without using an in-game feature. For those not wanting to use an in-game feature in attempting to block someone, the only possibility is to do so via communication.
What Are the Consequences of Blocking Someone in PUBG?
The consequences of blocking people in PUBG are that you will receive substantially fewer requests and messages from them, fewer games invites, and you will receive iquicker and better matching with other players. PUBG players who have received too many friend requests and game invites or who believe their message boxes are cluttered with unread messages could potentially create a more peaceful gaming environment for themselves by blocking fellow players who send the most requests and clutter themselves with the most unread messages. However, after blocking them, they may find that their gaming experience has become less cluttered and streamlined, with quicker and better matching and fewer notifications.
If your phone number or social media sites are connected to your PUBG account, you will be targeted by the players with whom you have interacted in-game. Blocking people you have been interacting with cannot stop them from sending you game invites or messages. But your matching with persons you have interacted with is likely to be improved by blocking those you are not interested in playing with.
Cannot Join the Same Match
In the case of automatically blocked players there is no specific action required. The automatic system puts players on separate servers already. With manually added blocked players, preventing them from joining the same match is the side effect of no longer following them, which is the purpose of the block feature. However, there is currently no direct confirmation that manually added blocked players are not able to join the same match.
Cannot See Each Other’s Profiles
If you block someone in PUBG, both of you will no longer be able to see each other’s profiles on the PUBG platform. This means that player statistics, such as your friend’s rank, wins, losses, and kill-death ratio will not be viewable. Not being able to see each other’s PUBG profiles is a visible form of the block’s working as it removes the way one can contact the other through the gameplay platform itself. If you have a toxic individual who you have solved the issue with and wish to unblock, you will have to find them through match chat asking for their PUBG name. After unblocking them, they will appear on your match contacts list and be easy to invite.
Cannot Communicate with Each Other
You will dial down the odds of being in a Pubg game with someone if you have blocked that person. According to Souvik Sengupta, Director, CSO, and Head of Channels at the UBS investment bank in India, the aim is to reduce the chance of having an incident with the problem user. While he is mostly referring to the financial field, the same strategy applies in various forms of social interaction, including online gaming.
When a person is blocked within a game or social network, the system tries as much as possible to reduce the ways and chances for the two to interact by communicating or playing games together. The Battlegrounds Mobile India game assumes that if you have a player blocked, you don’t want to play with them. This is true, the whole point of having someone blocked is to get them out of your game and communication space. And finally, if you don’t want to break an individual’s heart by blocking them on your list, you can always keep your PUBG friend requests list full.
Can Blocked Players Be Unblocked?
Blocked players in PUBG can be unblocked. But on platforms like Game Center on iOS, you have to go through added measures to do it. Game Center is the only platform where blocked friends can be unblocked by going to that friend’s settings and tapping ‘block user’ again. When you verify the action as ‘Unblock’, they can re-enter your contact list.
Other services you can use within PUBG don’t indicate how to unblock players. They just give you actions on blocking or removing the block. This is an area that PUBG Corporation says they will address in greater detail in future versions of the game. Also missing are any corporate rules around what contact permissions you’re granting to the tens of millions you run into on this global gaming community. And where the logs are that can notify players of possible threats to do with doxing and harassment.
But in this ever more sophisticated gaming environment, the ability to erase years of high-def, large-screen action memories at the tap of a key poses severe risks. Your player ID, or any of your gamer friends, can be targeted and lost forever in one emotional moment against an online opponent you’ll never even be able to notice is “clean”.
In-game Unblocking
There is no way to directly unblock someone within PUBG. If you block someone on PUBG, they will remain blocked until you add them as a friend and then unblock them afterwards. Blocking someone from within the game may be done either through a direct individual block. To block them simply unfriend them, or through a GAME LOBBY GROUP block by finding and tapping their name in your PUBG mobile chat and then select block from their profile.
Unblocking Through Customer Support
You cannot directly unblock someone without adding them, but PUBG customer service can help you remove someone from your block list. You must possess unique identifiers and provide proof for customer service to process your request. Go to Help > Customer Service and click on the query for the issue-related to Removing a player from the block list in Pubg. The process takes at most one to two weeks.
What Other Measures Can Be Taken to Avoid Unwanted Interactions in PUBG?
Other measures that can be taken to avoid unwanted interactions in PUBG include practicing muting and blocking. If there is voice chat during 100-person battle royale gaming, spammy and annoying comments are often made. Once the public gaming experience is better enjoy the game by simply muting and avoiding the player.
According to Akhmadov from Group-IB, other measures that can be taken to avoid unwanted interactions in PUBG include the following:
- Playing with Known Players
- Switching Off Voice Chat and Muting Enemy Groups
Turning off Voice Chat
A player in PUBG will automatically add you to their friends list if they contact you via voice chat. To turn off voice chat, go to the Settings page in PUBG. Click Audio in the settings options shown and use the Global Voice and Team Voice options to change them to Mute.
Selecting Mute-all Except Party will disable voice chat with the whole party. To block someone in PUBG from adding them as a contact, you can ask them to stop sending friend requests. If they continue trying to add you as a friend, you may need to unlink your Tencent-Gameloop account and start a new one. A more drastic move would be to change your Tencent-Gameloop account.
Turning off Text Chat
The second option for being able to block someone is to simply turn off the text chat feature in PUBG Mobile. This is done by selecting Message Option in the Basic Setting menu. Once selected, users will see a Text Message toggle in the upper right corner of the screen which will switch from red (OFF) to blue (ON) when pressed. By turning off the text chat function in settings, you will still automatically block other players from texting you and without having to add them as friends.
Playing with a Pre-made Squad
The third way to block someone in PUBG without adding them is to play with a pre-made squad that is already bigger than 4 players without accepting friend requests from people and adding them. Just like in the FRIENDS section, PUBG only stores the 20 most recent matches you play in the TEAMMATE section, and only those teammates can be added to make a full pre-made squad.
If a user is able to identify someone in the player section of his/her PUBG account who the user has already played with in the last 20 games, the user can now invite that person to their team. This bypasses the need to add that person as a friend.
Inviting someone from your recent teammates section without adding them as a friend allows you to play matches with them without them becoming your friend. If you don’t want to play with them or want to play with someone else, you can remove them by going to the Teams section and clicking the X. This is a tactical option for a player who doesn’t want to block someone in PUBG permanently but doesn’t want to play with them for a while.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I block someone in Pubg without adding them?
To block someone in Pubg without adding them, follow these steps: open the Pubg app, go to the Settings menu, select the ‘Privacy’ tab, click on ‘Blocked Players’, and then click on the ‘Add’ button to block the player you want.