Sometimes I play off-meta heroes, but it’s fairly hard for me to relate directly to the OP’s situation, because:
Unless I’m specifically trying to learn a hero, I almost always fill. I wait for at least 3 players to lock before I do, then I pick the best hero for the team composition (in my opinion). In most cases.
I never join voice chat. When I first started playing someone starting screaming through my TV and I, in surprise, said, “This game has VoIP?”. I disabled it. Permanently.
I do not play comp.
I play at a much lower level than the OP. (At least, I assume I do. Because I don’t play comp I don’t actually know, but I’m pretty sure I suck).
The above two imply the meta isn’t much of a concern for me.
I can’t speak directly for what toxicity is like at higher levels in comp, but if it’s anything like every other game in existence, then toxicity increases with rank. Rationalizations for toxicity tend to increase as well, with more players justifying toxicity (eg, “it’s your fault I can’t control my emotions because you suck so much”), or trying to redefine toxicity as bad performance (“you’re toxic because you only landed 80% of your last-hits instead of 90%+”), etc.
You’re also just going to experience more toxicity, and be treated less forgivingly on average, if you’re a women or an obvious racial minority. So what’s considered bad behavior for one player won’t necessarily be the same for another. This, again, makes it hard for me to relate directly to OP because my complete avoidance of voice chat renders it impossible for me to experience this.
I’ve basically opted out of the part of the game that includes the most toxicity. This is obviously less than ideal for Blizzard, because it reduces the player population in comp, which necessarily causes matchmaking to suffer.
Though, what I can say is that I would never report someone for playing an off-meta hero. Being on the opposite end, where I have a choice between (1) letting someone play what they want or (2) freaking out about their pick… The former seems like the really obvious answer to me.
Edit:
Naw, the mob is fickle. This is why lynching is illegal, man.
I liked your response, its true in a lot of cases.
However how do you deal with scenarios like communication not being mandatory but deeply appreciated and sought by most players and lack of it causing tension and leading to all sort of problems to the point of breaking some games.
Communication Its not in the rules and yet its something that is very nice to have and makes sense, intentionally or not when these crucial things stop being must haves and become the norm?
In that situation, Blizzard adds an LFG system, like they’ve done, and you use that. You can also form pre-made groups/play with friends who communicate. This is sadly just par for the course. You can’t require communication when hardware is a requirement because hardware breaks, but they can still listen and use the game’s voice line callouts at least.
My issue is how to handle players that actively mute themselves to avoid any interaction altogether, either because of immaturity, prejudice or that they simply dont give a duck of what anyone has to say, following up on something like this is extremely tricky without taking into account what the community generally considers acceptable behaviour and current Blizzard terms are inadequate to handle this imo.
I was the 1st person to pick a character (15 seconds into the start-up timer no less) and it was Symmetra. Immiedietly people were like “Oh no it’s a one trick. Oh look their profile is private they must be a one trick. They’re too bad to play a healer.” And so on.
One comment was “Oh yeah, they’re not even a good Symmetra. I played with them a while ago and they were bad.” Which would’ve really hurt - if it was true. And this wasn’t a game. And if I cared about a garbage child’s opinion. The funny part being I never played with that person ever.
People literally just make up crap to make someone feel bad or bully them into switching. But that’s to be expected. Garbage children will always be garbage children. Block ‘n’ move on.
imo Blizzard should remove the reporting function for 2 weeks or more so people get the hint to not abuse it. I personally never suffered from reports, but I know many good (and nice/respectful) players who have. It’s really gross and lame.
There’s a reason why Overwatch is in the top 5 of negative community and they’re the new kid on the block while LoL is still number 1. What Overwatch developers and moderators don’t realize is that they too are causing the toxic behavior to progress in their own game especially with their oppressive policies and how they handle appeals. As I said before once a GM told me one of their peers probably glanced over my message giving me a copy and paste reply. That sealed the deal for me meaning very few game moderators/ masters only take appeals serious than majority of them at Blizzard.
Your message can be constructive and well thought out, but to them is just another message to glance over, ignore and apply a penalty. They’re only their for a pay check than be there for the customers. That’s the trend now and probably be that way until something change.
I got suspended 3 times from false reports just for playing Symmetra and teammates just report anything that frustrates them now because they did not win the match or acknowledge the enemy team played better than them. These players just want every match to be an auto win and not expect competition.
It is disgusting, I apologize that the Overwatch team is incompetent and lies about their rules. I wish it were not this way, and I wish people cared more about the health of a game that they supposedly love. Thanks for sharing as that is all we can do. Just keep informing people that this is actually a problem as nothing will be addressed if we do not say anything.
Then you know Overwatch would lose more players who play casually regardless of mode. Having a oppressive rule like that kills the game and creates more fanatic report players. It’s like a puritan paradise.
Nobody would care if it was a rule as long as they were transparent about it. Okay, that is a lie. Everyone would jump down Blizzard’s throat because they would objectively be wrong and there would be massive controversy because of it which is why they would never dare admit the truth. But if they DID want to make that the rule, they should tell us.
Two years ago people were being silenced for playing literally any of like a third of the roster.
And you know what people said in response? You’re lying. You’re doing something wrong. Just don’t play those heroes.
OP speaks the truth. I have been banned 4 or 5 times simply for playing Symmetra. No griefing, no toxicity. And when you try to dispute your ban, Blizzard GMs come up with some vague and/or bogus reason to justify it. Automatic ban system is a joke.
Im perfectly fine, its you who missed my point. You cant control the actions of others but you can control the type of group you play with, finding like minded players via LFG or friendlist which was the point of my analogy.
At the point where you are muting text chat and playing for yourself you are throwing by definition. This is called “poor teamwork” and a reportable offense. I would report you for not participating in the chat as well.
![:slight_smile:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=5" ":slight_smile:")