Features to counter toxicity in Overwatch

General Discussion
1

Blizzard seems to be relatively irresponsible when it comes to countering toxic behavior. They tell us that it is up to us to keep the game from becoming toxic- by reporting players, avoiding teammates, and by not contributing to the toxicity ourselves.

To some extent, I agree with them. Such a responsibility isn’t theirs to bear alone.

However, they don’t really seem to fully understand why players become toxic in the first place.

From my experience, toxicity seems to stem from the frustration a player feels when another player isn’t contributing to their team’s success.

Either by not fulfilling their role, not cooperating/communicating with the team, or especially in competitive- by ignoring the objective entirely.

If someone on your team decides they no longer want to work with the team to win- they then wield the power to lower the whole team’s SR by themselves.

Even if everyone else tries their hardest to win- it usually isn’t enough to stop the team from losing.

Nobody feels good after the game and queueing up without a group ends up feeling like a total gamble.

A lot of players either get completely turned off from Competitive- or become toxic themselves because of such an experience.

The ability to report players and avoid teammates doesn’t do much in easing that frustration or the feeling of helplessness one feels during a game when their SR is at stake.

These features only feel like retroactive actions that don’t affect or improve the outcome.

I believe there are at least a couple of features Blizzard could implement to make working together as a team easier as well as help mitigate the overall frustration and toxicity in Overwatch.

Here are the ideas:

  • An option to show all teammate’s health bars and Ultimate charge on the HUD.

This is something that I’ve seen countless forum posts on. It would really help players work together in so many ways.

Having the ability to see when a teammate needs help- without them having to yell into their mic or spam x in hopes that someone on their team catches on would cure countless headaches.

Also, a teammate not in the voice channel would become less of a liability.

(It can be optional- because I can understand some people not wanting to clutter their screen.)

  • An option to enable ally silhouettes through walls (for non-healers).

This option would help players determine the location of their teammates.

Too many times a healer has told me to go to them for healing, or asked for help with an enemy attacker- and I would have little to no idea where they were.

It shouldn’t be a guessing game.

In a game so built around positioning and teamwork, this feature would be extremely valuable.

It would also make it significantly easier to play with players who don’t attempt to communicate.

I know these ideas aren’t original by any means, but I believe that they could drastically improve the team-based gameplay of Overwatch.

Players could focus more on the actual game and not get caught up in communication breakdowns or arguments.

1 Like
2

Adding a LFG option and removing restrictions on groups would help a lot.

2 Likes
3

You know that HUD suggestion is a really good idea. Now I’m kinda scratching my head why doesnt this game have that lol

I know FPS games from the year 2000 that had the features you listed.

Allow me to add some of my own…

Firstly- guilds, linkshells, companies, parties, whatever they wanna call it this needs to be a thing. Will increase player interactivity and lower toxicity since you’ll be grouped with people who either know what there doing or are good buds of yours

Secondly- avoid as teammate needs no restrictions and it needs to be universal. If I avoid someone I never wanna see that person ever again for as long as I live.

Thirdly- Option to stick with server of your choosing. Many times you’ll be on a roll and you dont want to leave the server, but after maybe 3 or 4 rounds your booted to another. Give us the option to stick around, maybe you like the enemies and allies alike.

Fourthly- class requests. This way you’ll avoid the dreaded * oh we dont need insert character switch* you’ll be with people who actually want and need you whatever you main. Like I’ll wanna go after groups that are looking for pretty boy dirty rats or hog heaven

Fifthly- avoid as map? Less likely to happen but it would be kinda nice if we could like cast quick votes or flip to see which team picks which maps to go to. Stage selection essentially.

1 Like
4

Yeah, there is hardly any control given to the player over their experience. Most people I talk to pray to RNGesus regularly in order to play certain maps or stay on a team with random people they enjoy playing with. :joy:

5

What if there were some kind of reward for getting voted Epic or better? People might be nicer, to avoid alienating their teammates and losing their votes.

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6

Could be interesting. I like the idea of some sort of positive reinforcement given to players who play well, but I know that there are a lot of people who just vote for themselves. Even if they only got a card for a gold objective time of less than a minute compared to their teammate with 30 eliminations.

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7

Blizzard aren’t responsible for toxic people and the best thing you can do with toxic people is humour them for being mad men

8

Ive been asking for this for over a year. Take a look:

I really think that this would help reduce toxic attitudes.

Also rework the medals:

1 Like
9

I salute thee for trying for a year to get these features implemented. You truly are doing god’s work.

I also never considered how the in-game medals affected the attitude of the team. You definitely have a point with that. It can create discourse within the team because of internal competitions.

But on the other hand, sometimes knowing who is contributing to the team the most/least in a certain area can be helpful. (In competitive, at least.)

Like if a Mercy has bronze healing when there are only a Zenyatta and a Roadhog on the team in terms of healing capabilities- it probably would be beneficial to ask them to switch roles to maximize efficiency.

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10

Too many players
To much instances of toxicity (intended or not)
Too few blizzard ‘slaves’ to truly validate said toxicity.
Very hard to regulate the volume or quality of toxicity in correlation first or twentieth times.
Too many false or inaccurate reportings.

Too many (jokes)
Trust fall exercises
Coffee breaks
New skins or maps to make
Visiting YouTubers or Twitchers
OWL viewing
Nerfing or buffing characters :rofl:

Soo many things and they don’t even hire out to the Omni-thingies. :rofl:

11

lmao, they also still haven’t fixed Numbani’s airport after a whole year of it being closed. I feel bad for the opressed people of Numbani due to Blizzard’s neglect :sob: :sob:

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12

Ah, they were talking about that when they had their coffee break but it never made it past security. :rofl::rofl::rofl:

13

They probably even imported their coffee from Numbani* to avoid paying full prices in USD. Capitalism is wild.

(*I am aware that Numbani is a fictional place.)

14

this would not help. this would be the same as adding a forced role selection or a forced hero selection into the game. it would add to Que times and make matches become longer to get into.

ops ideas sound well sound. other things they could add are guilds or clans.

fix the punishing of grouping. and remove it from the game so that people cna team with people they want to team with. ie there friends. without being forced into a match with an enamy team that has higher mmr then them

find a way to kill off the meta occult slaves that beleave that the meta is the only way to play (( there mainly the most toxic in this game. becuse if you dont play the meta you are not playing the game the way they want you to play ))

thats about it

15

Oh it is? And here I was wanting to visit and adopt my very own robot. :sob::sob:

1 Like
16

Who knows, maybe this game will end up with enough characters where they add a Draft mode. The meta cult would have a tough time with that.

17

elaberate. otherwise i can not wrap my mind around it to well.

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18

Peel one of those OR-15s from the Numbani Airport. :money_mouth_face:

19

I said they should remove the punishment of groups. Sorry if I didn’t make this clear enough. Also a grouping system would fix the meta slave problem too. Because people who want to do that could do that and not have to be toxic to people.

1 Like
20

Provide a telephone number on-screen pointing players to their nearest therapist and it won’t go until they input the code that therapist gives.