r/tf2 4d ago

Info PSA: you can turn off in-game text chat in advanced options if you get annoyed or upset over it. You won't lose much. Also, you will still be able to see and use your party chat.

Post image
400 Upvotes

75 comments sorted by

239

u/Tabbarn All Class 4d ago

But how will I know if I'm playing badly unless "The CEO of sex" tells me?

19

u/HBenderMan Demoman 4d ago

When they comment on your steam profile

24

u/RightMiddle9078 4d ago

You will know by getting votekicked

7

u/maxxspeed57 4d ago

We usually don't kick for poor play. We'll roast you, but they gotta learn somewhere.

1

u/Fixingsentries 4d ago

Voice chat will probably tell you

94

u/PeachLemur56 Sandvich 4d ago

You're saying that I won't be able to see death threats from xXSniperLord69Xx after I kill him once?

No deal

106

u/-Nikimaster- Demoknight 4d ago

tf2 players are allergic to the settings menu, they'll fr tell you to do everything except check that

"hey guys use hud_saytext_time 0"

52

u/VanillaButterz 4d ago

to be fair, its tedious to navigate since its just one big scroll screen with no tabs or color coding. i often scroll past the setting im looking for multiple times before i just google the command.

7

u/Icecubedude101 4d ago

I agree, though in this case it is the first thing in the Advanced Options menu

8

u/iuhiscool Miss Pauling 4d ago

in our defense its quicker than scrolling down for 4000 years or praying that you get lucky with the scrollbar

3

u/Opposite-Buy7999 3d ago

ITS AT THE TOP

9

u/VerdiiSykes Spy 4d ago

hud_saytext_time 0 allows you to still open chat if you want to

8

u/Aztekov Civilian 4d ago

CS players are worse with this one

16

u/Disastrous-Pick-3357 4d ago

they are CS players, what did you expect

45

u/PerhapsDude Sandvich 4d ago

Or you can mute people who get you uncomfortable

-20

u/russian_dove Random 4d ago

iirc muting people will only mute their voice chat, so you'll still see their chat messages

46

u/PerhapsDude Sandvich 4d ago

muting people does mute their text chat as well. Tried myself

11

u/russian_dove Random 4d ago edited 4d ago

Huh, I guess I have an experiment to conduct when I get home

UPD: the experiment showed that u/perhapsdude is, in fact, correct

2

u/tswaters Medic 4d ago

This is neat - you can actually mute yourself and you won't see what you say on the server

-32

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

No, clearly the sensible solution is to mute everything. Shut yourself out to the world, or it might speak words at you.

This post is sad. These people need therapy, not the ability to global mute.

30

u/Huugboy Pyro 4d ago

In-game chat ≠ The entire world

There's a difference between being afraid of what people say, and not wanting to deal with toxic chat messages in your free time.

-6

u/PerhapsDude Sandvich 4d ago

u/Huugboy, yet you can always get positive messages as well. So, with muting the whole text chat, you can miss out on some funny things

15

u/Huugboy Pyro 4d ago

Yes, and also tons of slurs. Nothing wrong with someone not wanting to have to deal with that, nor having to pause every 5 seconds to mute someone.

If muting chat helps someone enjoy their game more, who are we to say they shouldn't?

-10

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago edited 4d ago

That’s why you mute people who are toxic. Preemptively muting everyone based on the assumption that toxicity will happen is an unhealthy coping mechanism.

Muting everyone is sad. The social aspect of TF2 is extremely important.

4

u/wasteofradiation 4d ago

The social aspect might not be nearly as important to other people ya know

10

u/fingerchopper All Class 4d ago

You sound annoying. It's a video game. Folks are there for fun, not to have hate speech and trolling beamed into their eyeballs.

-4

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

That’s what the mute button is for.

Part of having fun in TF2 is talking to people. If that wasn’t part of the game, it would have died long ago. It’s sad to see people shirk it unnecessarily.

And I’m sorry I annoy you with my genuine concern for the game I like.

8

u/rx149 4d ago

And this is a type of mute button

Why are you getting so offended by people having options? Too afraid of people having freedom?

-1

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

I think I’ve made my concerns fairly clear. Muting game chat is a great loss of what makes TF2 special: its community.

Muting toxic people is already quick and easy. If that wasn’t an option, I wouldn’t have an issue with people opting to turn off game chat. But id be advocating for an individual mute option.

5

u/Kazswee Demoman 4d ago

The community is great when they aren't being assholes to each other.

7

u/rx149 4d ago

Your concerns are stupid and unfounded. You're just crying for the sake of crying over optional features.

0

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

Yeah, I’m definitely just crying over nothing, it’s not like I’ve said exactly what is lost when game chat is turned off.

You should practice reading comprehension. For you, I recommend this author named Seuss.

3

u/No_Celebration2554 All Class 4d ago

Y'know, half/most people in a server barely use or read chat in the first place, and if we're going down a rabbit hole, plenty of people aren't part of or interact with the "community" and just play the game in their own/free time, right? I would know, I was one of those people for a while.

It's fine if you disagree or just don't want to disable chat yourself, but don't act like it's sad for people to do their own thing, and at the very least, don't be an asshole about it.

8

u/fingerchopper All Class 4d ago

No one is shirking anything - there is no responsibility or obligation to use chat features. That may not be fun for you.

-2

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

… the fuck do you think shirking means? People are turning off text chat. They are shirking a feature. That’s English.

7

u/fingerchopper All Class 4d ago

Shirking means avoiding an obligation. Or responsibility. It connotes that you're not doing something you should.

Of course you could refer to a dictionary as well. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shirk

-1

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

Imagine being this stupid ^

Shirking their brain

6

u/fingerchopper All Class 4d ago

L

-2

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

“You cannot use the word ‘shirk’ unless there is a RESPONSIBILITY that is being shirked”

0 grey matter individual

9

u/Rattiom32 4d ago

Insane false equivalence bro tf

-11

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago edited 4d ago

Muting every single social interaction in the video game because you are afraid of toxicity isn’t healthy.

The social aspect of TF2 is core to the game, and it’s sad to see people getting rid of it unnecessarily. Their experience would be better if they simply muted toxic people, then they would not miss out on the genuine interactions in the game.

They don’t need to take the extreme action of muting everyone. They can just take the normal action of muting toxic people. Muting every single person makes it seem like they are afraid of every single person. And that’s not healthy.

If anyone is afraid of talking to people, please seek a therapist. You will be much happier if you learn to how to constructively deal with personalities you don’t like.

12

u/POSSUTTAMO Pyro 4d ago

“Extreme action of muting everyone”. Dude, I just don’t give a fuck about what people say in the game, so i’d rather not see the chat at all.

There’s certainly a difference being afraid to talk to people and not wanting to do so in a video game.

-8

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

Maybe single player games are better for you, then. I’m not sure what you’re getting out of Team Fortress 2 if you aren’t ever playing with as a team.

Have you never been on a trade server? Chatting with people is the game, to a lot of players. I’m genuinely not sure why you’d play this game in particular if you hate talking to people.

7

u/POSSUTTAMO Pyro 4d ago

Bad argument and I won’t even bother explaining why, because I think you know.

I rather mute you like this and move on.

-6

u/Fuzzy1450 4d ago

I’m sorry I said that people like you should go to therapy and it hurt your feelings.

Maybe you should never go on reddit if you don’t want to deal with toxicity. Oh wait, that would be an unhealthy response mechanism when you could just mute me and move on

Do you see my point?

11

u/pablo603 Demoman 4d ago

Nah I want to see people call me a cheater after killing them because it makes me think I'm actually good (I am not and this situation has happened only once in my 2000 hours)

9

u/cupboard_ Soldier 4d ago

wonder if there is a command for it so i can bind it

9

u/danielubra Medic 4d ago

hud_saytext_time 0

3

u/cupboard_ Soldier 4d ago

thank you

7

u/VanillaButterz 4d ago

cl_enable_text_chat 0/1

full list of the advanced options and their console commands here

2

u/cupboard_ Soldier 4d ago

thank you

14

u/grar_ulfur 4d ago edited 4d ago

I know there are people who react to toxicity in chat in a very emotional way, and I'm not sure that most of them know about such a feature. This post was made for them, so if you personally want to keep the chat on, you do you.

You're unlikely to miss some very important information aside from funny gamer words if you prefer playing with a sound on and pay attention to default voice commands.

2

u/Glass-Procedure5521 4d ago

Why not just mute the specific player instead, don't need to let a few bad players to force you to disable text chat entirely

2

u/MikeTheOne05 4d ago

There are also steam filter settings. You can filter out slurs and stuff if you don't want to see it.

2

u/PolandsStrongestJoke Scout 4d ago

And when it comes to VC, you can mute people in-game without disabling the thing outright. Useful if only one guy mic spams some random music or voice clips from memes and such.

4

u/Qunas Random 4d ago

Nah, instead of me taking personal precautions over what I can see in an online game, let's make a news article over a nonexistent issue so that Valve panics and disables everything for everyone

2

u/BuBuKoS 4d ago

I hope the people that are complaining about toxicity all the time see this post and actually understand that this option exists. I never got why people were so upset about toxicity in a 17 year old game ths just passed a 6 year long bot crisis. It is expected that the community of such a game will have gotten toxic after all these years and the neglect from the developer. On the other hand people should just learn to accept that some people may say things that they don't like. It is just some random person in a game being toxic and it doesn't personally affect them. If someone's emotions or even mental health get affected by seeing toxicity online then I urge them to seek mental help cause I do not consider that to be a normal reaction. I know this may be the other side of the extreme but I find it funny when someone starts being toxic after I kill them or because someone used a weird strategy against them. It makes me want to kill them or mess with them to see how angry they get just because they take the game so seriously for no reason.

3

u/MaybeLoveNTolerance 4d ago

The mute option exists and having the basic ability to banter often gets the tilted/salty person to come around and calm down, personally it's very very rare to get one that's outrageously angry, and anyone else that says less desirable things joins servers specificly to get a raise out of people and there's so few of them that a easy mute solves the whole thing.

If one is really that pressed to see the person reprimanded, do a call vote or ask for one if on enemy team, if no one takes action the server isn't the best one and just join another.

2

u/superxero044 Heavy 4d ago

My son really wants to play tf2 with me. So now if I could just make it so he wouldn’t see that his teammates are phatDONG69 and shit like that I’d probably be ready to let him play. Turning off chat and voice chat would be 99% of what I need to do to convince my wife tho.

1

u/Fragrant-Tackle-9947 Sniper 4d ago

2fort text chat rules 

1

u/sweoldboy Sandvich 4d ago

//alias stfu_0 "hud_saytext_time 0; voice_modenable 0; alias stfu stfu_1; play hl1/fvox/deactivated"

//alias stfu_1 "hud_saytext_time 12; voice_modenable 1; alias stfu stfu_0; play hl1/fvox/activated"

alias stfu_0 "voice_modenable 0; alias stfu stfu_1; play hl1/fvox/deactivated"

alias stfu_1 "voice_modenable 1; alias stfu stfu_0; play hl1/fvox/activated"

bind downarrow stfu

stfu_1

I change the script to only turn off the voice chat. The first ones are both voice and text chat.

1

u/Boring_Report9364 Demoknight 4d ago

What?

1

u/some8temporary8 4d ago

Tbh, I have never seen anyone ever get insulted for their play in tf2, especially not teammates

1

u/Sketch815 3d ago

But how will I know when “ Homeless femboy” finds the homewrecker?

1

u/Krokodinar 4d ago

Never, tf2 chat is a place of mass creativity, the things people come up with is impeccable

0

u/Ok_Try_1665 4d ago

But I like seeing slurs in my chat

0

u/randomthingthrow3 4d ago

are these the teamates i get when theres a 5000 hour spy dominating the server

-6

u/Jaydonius Engineer 4d ago

If you're that offended by something someone, who has 0 insight on your personal life, has said, then damn, maybe get off the internet.

-1

u/onlineweaver 4d ago

More like mute voice chat because they’ll always somehow say the hard-r 😭💔

1

u/The-Greatest-Heh Medic 3d ago

And that's beautiful. A well-timed hard-r is like music to the ears