Playing CS2 without a microphone or headset
As an avid user of a microphone in video games over the years I’ve come to have a love hate relationship with my microphone and voice chat in Counter Strike: 2. You would think having the ability to use your voice and listen to your team mates would be a fantastic thing and beneficial to all but that is not always the case.
Benefits of having no microphone
One of the best benefits might not actually be for you but actually for your team mates. Not being able to get angry easily at your team may make them play better throughout the game. If you get angry at them for every little thing or “back seat play” while they play they might lose interest in the game or just stop playing completely. There is no doubt you’ve received the same and I know I’ve lost interest in playing a game when people are abusive in the game or just shouting random things and being annoying in general.
Lastly it can help you with your general speaking and leadership skills in real life. Don’t ever let your parents tell you that you’re not learning anything playing video games, we all know it’s not true but we don’t know how much we actually improve ourselves while playing video games. Playing CS2 can also benefit your thinking, problem solving, hand-eye coordination and social skills.
Disadvantages of having no microphone
You can’t tell your team easily where the enemy team is once you spot them or have been killed by them. Not everyone takes a quick peak at the map when one of their team mates die, so if you’re able to call out the enemies position it can really help your team mates out. Not having your headset on if you have a microphone connected to it means you may be distracted by external sounds from around your room whether it is family members in the background, a TV on next to you or the net door neighbor mowing their lawn at 10pm for some reason.
If you don’t have a headset you’ll also be missing out heavily on the sounds that the game gives you which you won’t just pick up from having speakers. You’ll be able to pin-point the location of enemies, places that a grenade has been hit a wall, the location a gun has been dropped and even locations on the map where some glass has been broken. If for some crazy reason you have not got a headset (even without a microphone) I would highly, highly recommend the HyperX Cloud II Headset on Amazon which is used by many professional CS2 players and it doesn’t even come close to braking the bank shockingly.
If you decide that you don’t want to communicate with people in CS2 you can open your console and type “voice_enabled 0”. This turns off the ability for you to use your microphone as well the ability to hear other players. Alternatively you could try “voice_scale 0” which does allow you to use your microphone to communicate with everyone but mutes them so you won’t be able to hear anything they say.
