And I don’t mean in a primary user sense. Any individual account needs to be a plus or gold account to play this game online.
I don’t know if there’s a precedent for this, but this really needs to happen to maintain a quality console experience. I just had a game with some shmuck with a bunch of 420s and 69s in his name, no playstation plus icon and a low game score. He very obviously threw the game by not participating (leaving game and coming back, sitting in spawn hammering turret, you get the picture). Obviously the rest of the team reported him, but it basically doesn’t matter. If he gets banned, who cares? It’s a smurf account. He’ll just make a new one. He won’t be held accountable, nor will many other trolls who I’m sure you’ve all come across at some point or another. They can act this way with impunity because there are no actual consequences.
Making Playstation Plus and Xbox Gold mandatory for any account to access Overwatch’s servers is crucial to maintain the integrity of this game on console. Is this possible to do?
EDIT:
Since there’s some confusion about how PS Plus works (I imagine it’s the same for Xbox Gold, but I can’t say for sure) is only one account needs to have Playstation Plus on a PS4 for any other user to get the benefits of Plus, including online play. My suggestion is for Blizzard to make it so that only accounts with Plus may access Overwatch online. This is an effort to reduce griefing smurf accounts, most Playstation users (if not Xbox as well) will tell you is a major and a common issue on console. Now I realize this is not ideal for people with large families and multiple users that play the game online, but I really do wonder that number is compared to people who just use second or third accounts.
Tbere’s also good suggestion below for a mandatory Battlenet account link on console. I think that is a fantastic idea as well.
I… didn’t even know that you can get into the game without Xbox Gold. Every time my Gold runs out, it doesn’t let me into the game, even if I’m connected to the internet on my account
I think what the OP meant was that each account needs to have XBL Gold to play, primary and secondary accounts alike. Correct me if I’m wrong, but as of the current moment, don’t you only need XBL Gold on the Console’s primary account to be able to play Overwatch on all accounts?
Yes but they wont make you pay for individual gold or ps plus especially with the whole family aspect of consoles. IF that was the case then you should also have to buy (digital games) each time per account.
Given that I initially didn’t have my own account (or Console for that matter) for OW either, I circumvented simply by using my older brother’s PS4 and his account. But that’s just what I did (until I got my own PS4 and copy for OW that is).
This would be an absolute nightmare for people like me who have a big family and each of us have our own accounts. We should NOT have to pay for FIVE separate accounts just so there could be a slightly less chance of people making smurf accounts. Because people would STILL make smurf accounts even if they had to pay cause people pay for smurf accounts on PC. This absolutely should NOT happen. EVER.
Something needs to be done with Smurfs on console. Honestly. Its so bad. Ive even had one game where a smurf was named something like “Iboostegurls” and on the other team there was one named “willboostegirls”
Better proposition, to play OW you have to link/create your console to a Battlenet account. That extra step should disincentive all but the most dedicated of griefers.
I hope they won’t do anything like that. It’d be horrible for a lot of people, like siblings that use the same console getting the access to the game with simply one PS+. If they took that away it’d be likely that a lot of players would rather use shared accounts than sub. twice for PS+ which then again can screw over the rankin’ and stuff.
While I sympathize with this, but you must admit there would be more than a “slightly” less chance for smurfs as paying extra will surely be a deterrent. Yes, there are smurfs on PC, but here’s the thing: they can be punished. Because of the way Plus and Gold work, smurfs on console face no penalty if they decide to throw, be toxic, what have you.
The only other thing I can see solving this issue would be a console ban for the same kind of offenders. Which do you think is worse?