It’s your duty to prove your disproven theory correct, btw. That’s how this works. Prove me wrong. I proved you wrong. Now it’s your turn to prove me wrong.
Btw, you lost.
Burden of proof is on the accuser.
My stance is that the system works as described by Blizzard, yours is contrarian thus accusing the stated process of not working as described.
Go conduct the tests, prove Blizzard wrong with the results, then change my mind and blow the lid off their lies for everyone to see.
Get hustling the data won’t generate itself.
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I stream. Back when I actually played Overwatch I think I was banned for like a few days for “inappropriate communication”. I had chat disabled for the last three years.
I offered to send the Devs/support the last 300 hours of footage from my stream proving I never said anything in chat not even voice. Just got the automatic “our suspensions are final” never played after that. I haven’t played in well over a year. I might have less than twenty hours in OW2 lmao
Just ignoring reading your posts now, just going to reply.
I gave you evidence that proved your theory wrong and that Blizzard’s system is guilty.
It is now your duty to prove your innocence.
That’s how this works.
If you are willing, follow me on this.
In 2020, my brother was in a game with me and was silenced for saying…bad things. I was fed up with the people who report for words so like an adult, I started using the /hidechat function. I imbedded a macro into my Logitech G13 Gameboard, the button on the bottom left with the macro. Every time I logged into the game, I hit the button. I also decided that if I were to use voice communication, I would do so only in party chat, with friends, unless they were willing to use Discord which was the preferred method.
This is the set up.
In September of 2023 I was given a 30 day silence after not using any chat function in game for close to three years. When I saw the red text, I was literally laughing out loud. I didn’t use the function, so Blizzard taking it away was rather amusing. Later, about 2-3 months from the silence, I was reading the forums and came across people talking about being able to report for use of in game voice lines. Then I realized, I have a key bind for “my ultimate is charging/ready” that I used every game. I came to the realization that I was silenced for using this key bind. The best part is, I was using that key bind while I was silenced and it still worked.
This was the punishment.
So,
- Can we agree that it can happen, even if no chat function is used?
- How much faith do we put in Blizzard’s words in regard to their report system?
- How many people based on pure speculation does this affect?
The most important question - What metric can be devised to see exactly what can be reported. How many reports it takes, and what the punishment cycle is?
I would like to see if we can start here and discuss. If you don’t mind.
Edit: I had a felling.
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Concession noted.
You lost. I won. Try again in another post.
Yeah I don’t mind, in fact I have a few theories on this myself and I think it’s by far one of the dumbest and most easily abused report functions by the sheer generic nature and interpretation of it. Had to hit the gym, but I thought I’d reply just to stick a bookmark in it. Sorry for the delayed response.
100%. Since the system is based on cumulated match reports, it absolutely can be used as such.
I’m fact my theory is that the noted lack of communication can be interpreted as “inappropriate communication”, which is patently absurd.
That their system is about 90% automated, therefore with enough reported matches anyone can be banned. What that number is though and if there’s decay is up to further discovery.
Personally I put a lot more faith in it than I used to primarily because I’ve seen examples of truly innocent regular players (not streamers) have their bans reversed. The process of reversal requires an overhaul, as that’s the part I have the most issue with. But the initial report system on its own is pretty fine despite its obvious flaws as long as there’s a path to redemption for the truly innocent.
It needs some specific and poignant work, but as it stands it’s an imperfect necessity.
I’m not going to fathom a guess, but I’d say more often than not the communication report is the most flawed but also most on point report option utilized by pure nature of its function.
This would be an interesting one to test, I actually had one planned in the initial stages of the game when players swore it wasn’t functional.
I can elaborate with the next reply though.
Well i definitely feel we’ve crossed paths…
I was tired as hell when I saw there was a reply, so I slept on it, so I can give a decent reply.
So we agree. Rendering this point a shared baseline.
We have a difference of of opinion on this one, and I will get into that later.
Based on my own head math, and years of dealing with different Blizzard “things” my estimate would be 1-3% of the population has had some sort of invalid negative penalty due to the report system in Overwatch. I have no way to prove it, but would love to see number for a more proper estimate.
So the meat and potatoes.
The things I would want to see, if a test were done would be;
- How many reports, but the Blizzard defined 1 report per 1 game scenario.
- I would like to see what happens, if the same test were run with multiple reports per game, over the same amount of time to see if there is a change.
- I would also want to see if each report is handled the same for the different chat mechanics in the game, Match Chat, Team Chat, and Party Chat. As well as the voice line reports.
- I would want to see the penalty escalation, as in, 2 week silence leads to 30 day silence, leads to account suspension, leads to account ban.
Issues I see with testing.
Imma have to give you another story.
About 8 to 10 years ago, Blizzard attempted an automated chat silence and ban system in World of Warcraft. Now, if you know those cats, when Blizzard comes out with a new system they will min max the ____ out of it. In this case, a new account was established. The person created a Priest, was invited to their raid guild, and stood in Stormwind. Then the proceeded to say nice things about Blizzard over and over. His raid guild took turns, one after the other and reported him. The new automated system took about 30 reports. His account was disconnected, and when he logged back in he was silenced.
So what did Blizzard do?
About three days later, they did a hotfix patch. Apparently they saw the video. After the hotfix, the guild did another test and there was no automated punishment in from chat reports. Now, Blizzard never said anything regarding this. They just did a hotfix, and went about their business.
So, how do you test Overwatch?
I spent hours this morning, trying to think of a foolproof way. I took the test from World of Warcraft and could not apply that dynamic to Overwatch. You just aren’t in a place where the same chat functionality exists. You could try, as you stated with custom games. But none of us know if the custom game infrastructure allows for the same penalty application. You could ask people nicely to do it in games. But now you won’t know how many did, or if there is still a mechanic of 1 report per 1 game.
On to the “Trust us, we’re Blizzard”.
Over the years I have had multiple interactions with Blizzard staff. Outside of the first three, all happening over the span of about six to seven years, each one has become progressively more volatile. I would have to write an immense amount of stuff to cover each and every interaction. I will only cover the last one.
Once my silence in September of 2023 had ended, I decided to wait until the merger of Blizzard and Microsoft had completed. Once it had, I then began to speak to Microsoft support. I reached out to them, because to be honest, After 19 years interacting with Blizzard, I have zero faith in their competence, their rational thought, or their ethics. The next thing I was completely blown away by was, after contacting Microsoft, I went ahead and reached out to Blizzard support. I wanted to know if I could handle my request through them, instead of continuing with Microsoft. The response I read, that was sent from Blizzard support, months after my silence had ended was that “I will have to wait for the current silence to end on my account, and it will not be overturned.” At that point I was sure, there is no Blizzard support.
I have no trust in Blizzard. Not their support, not their words in regard to balance, and not their claim to everyone how their report system works. I am not even sure they know. Blizzard personifies the thought experiment of “The Ship Of Theseus”.
Now the last few paragraphs have been completely my opinion. And you can ignore them if you wish. But when you overlay my opinion and the fact that their report system is wildly incoherent, I don’t see a point in trying to figure it out. I’m not a doom and gloom cat. I don’t think Blizzard is going away. But I come back every day hoping the Sword if Damocles has finally fallen. Blizzard, the employees, are a rot on the video game industry. There are swaths and swaths of people who don’t know, and don’t care. It would be nice to see them start.
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who?
???
I’m having fun with it, unless like your attempting to roll into legendary with random’s.
Which is a bad idea in any game mode, not just Gauntlet.
They should’ve designed it to be more accessible for running Legendary difficulty with strangers. I had the same exact issue with Archives and Invasion PvE missions. Aaron himself didn’t find any issues with single digit percentage clears either. I’m not asking for them to make it an EZ or even regular curve, just a little bit more considerate of player’s time.
so, what did you exactly say?
Cuz most of the time with threads like this, people usually don’t tell everything in the first message.
I don’t think a simple message like: “maybe “x” hero would be better than “y” hero this situation” would do that.
The worst part about the reporting system and the obsession Blizzard has with banning people is that it doesn’t actually accomplish anything. Nobody can argue the game is less argumentative now than it was at any other point in its history, it happens just as much or even more so.
All Blizzard is really doing here is throwing the perpetually offended a bone, which in turn makes them want to report even more people. It’s an awful, objectively useless, system.
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This is proof right here of how people think they know how OW’s systems work, but actually don’t.
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without a doubt ppl who use slurs get banned fast. Thankfully the community is pretty good abt that, it’s just that u can only do so much at the moment they say them. Also the report system only goes off quantity of reports when deciding whether or not to take action. U could get 5 or 6 losers who report you under the guise of throwing or chat abuse and u can get suspended for it. U can appeal it, but there’s no guarantee they actually undo the action or respond at all. And if u have any swears or anything that can be perceived as aggressive in your recent chat messages ur SOL. the report system is incredibly easy to abuse rn
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Yup even if you owned as moira if you play more aggressive way doing more damage and a way they did not like they will spam report you anyway.
The Report system needs to be COMPLETLEY REMOVED except for cheaters or real throwers and then limit the amount of reports to 3 per day maximum.
I mean anyone trying to defend this report system is kinda making themselves look a bit silly at this point.
No long and elaborate smart sounding posts are needed , everybody knows it is broken and heavily abused and spammed.
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It shouldn’t be, that’s the whole point.
Playing the game, even with passion, should NEVER have been reportable or sanctionable in the first place.
The truly toxic people by now understood that their weapon of choice is the report button, so they stopped flaming years ago and switched to spam reporting.
Blizzard endorses that behavior, so at the end of the day they celebrate themselves for their automated system “working” while in reality toxicity is instead spreading and rising creating a russian roulette scenario for everyone daring to chat.
//edit:
I forgot the solution: disable chat and stop paying for garbage - you’re financing this system.
I’ll gladly pay for content again when the asocial anti-consumer systems get a rework and they stop using as as guinea pigs for their great ideas (who would’ve THOUGHT that allowing to stack heroes in the latest butchered version of quickplay would result in people stacking anas spamming sleepdarts so the tank role becomes completely unplayable, AGAIN?)
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