Hovering over ally profile shows three "favorite heroes"

General Discussion
1

Short pitch: Hover over an ally’s name/icon in character select to see their selected “favorite heroes”.

Public profiles give bad information, Private profiles give no information.

I feel like it would benefit players if they had a bit more agency over what info they give their teammates. If you were a Widow or Rein main in 2017 but absolutely hate both heroes now, you could feature the hero you want so allies can quickly get an idea on who you may feel confident on.

Long take: I posted this a bunch before but I feel like both the Career Profile and Achievements could use a buff!

Players should be able to edit their career page and highlight the heroes/stats they want to feature. Maybe the full stats are there still if someone wants to see but the point is to give players more control over the data presented.

If someone has 100 hours on Widow but feels like they are more impactful on Mei then they should be able to highlight those stats. Someone with 20 hours but a ton of sniping experience from other games may want to highlight their Widow stats/favorite her as a character.

The data is still true but allies can quickly get an idea on who you are as a player.

Going beyond that, Achievements could be fluffed up too.

Using this new career profile, I feel like the motivation of the achievement changes would be to get players more excited about actually playing and learning different heroes.

  • Achievements track your progress on individual heroes, compared to the community. Like a private, hero-based SR system. As you do better on Doomfist, for example, you gain more points. This would be much better than the current achievement system of landing a 6man ult once and getting a spray.
  • There could be things like “Silver” or “Diamond” guns added in game that you only earn after completing achievements per hero. This is across all/most game modes rather than just competitive. This would also take some weight off of player borders, which many people constantly post hating due to the perception it gives off.
  • Achievements aren’t tied to wins but rather performance. I don’t want players feeling like they have to stay locked onto a hero all match or swap on the win/lose to fake scores. it all comes down to whether you are getting better at that hero or not (on fire, accuracy, near-death saves/etc).
  • Career Profile cosmetics could also be added as smaller rewards - like player icons now. Genji banner on top, for example, so players can get an even greater sense that you’ve been kicking butt on that hero and so that the player themselves can feel good about their progress.
20 Likes
2

Yep. Great idea. I made the same suggestion a while ago.

2 Likes
3

Couldn’t agree more.

13 Likes
4

I guess I don’t mind this, but I do still kinda wonder what it practically accomplishes.

People who want to micromanage their teammates will still be cranky. “Yes, I see that your favorite hero is Ana, but how can I trust that you’re GOOD at her?? I can’t even see how much playtime you have!”

People whose favorite hero(es) are offmeta will still get yelled at for maining those heroes.

People who want absolute, total privacy over their profile will still want to hide everything.

People who have three favorite heroes, but competency on more than three heroes, can still get yelled at for picking outside of their profile. (i.e., My favorites rn are probably Zen, Zarya, and Lucio, but I’m also good at Mercy and will run her if it makes sense with the team comp.) People could possibly even start reporting each other for throwing for picking outside of their favorites list.

Seeing what heroes another player prefers doesn’t change what they can (or will) actually choose to run, or how well they coordinate with you.

Again, I’m not opposed to this idea—it seems pretty innocuous to me—but I don’t really understand what it will help or change.

1 Like
5

I am in favor with no information because you do not need it and a team mates performance can be ascertain from the first few moments in the game. As a player you cannot control anything beyond yourself and should focus more on your own game play.

2 Likes
6

Question which I’ve yet to get an answer for whenever Profile Privacy comes up:

Why do you need any information?

If you’re in a competitive setting and want to talk strategy try talking to your team.

If they ignore you or talk crap, they weren’t going to listen to anything you say anyway.

2 Likes
7

Yeah, it won’t fix player attitudes - sadly, nothing can really fix that. Career profiles were introduced to keep track of playtime/data - I don’t see them as being the cure for chill teams, especially since teams are random.

The big potential cure I wanted to see was Player guilds but the devs announced that they gave up on that idea… the dream is that Overwatch itself would guide players to forming teams so that they can actually train and practice together. Of course, that could affect long it takes to get into matches so it won’t solve everything either…

But anyway, this is just a better version of the profile as part of a larger achievement system haha. I’d rather the career page do its job in a nicer way, even if it doesn’t fix toxicity by itself. Players get more say in what they show, angry players are still angry, curious players can get a better sense of what their allies will do before a match

True, you can’t control other people, nor should you. This is simply a way to make the career page actually express what a player may want to express. As it is now, you either show the wrong info or you hide all of the info. I think more choice is better - especially if it results in less confusing data haha

I don’t think anyone “needs” information, it’s just an extra layer to the game. Like when you look at a friend’s achievement page to see what trophies they have or put on a title you earned in something like Destiny 2

Some people don’t really care what their profiles say – others like the idea of having some report card tracking their stats. For those players, I picture having more control of those stats would be beneficial. Highlight what you feel like you are good at. If the achievement idea comes with it then it also would give a better sense of progress, rewarding players for learning different heroes and making them feel better!

When it comes to sharing that info, that’s just social science. Not everyone likes it but many people enjoy sharing stuff. Skins, icons, voice lines, our favorite high lights – we could all sit and look at it in our character page but many players naturally like the idea of having stuff to put out there. Opposite of that: when I was in Korea, plenty of people just played in PC rooms with no concern of tracking their stats - just play it for fun in the moment on a random name.

It’s not going be some magic fix for toxicity haha. Random matches are uncontrollable – the only answer is to make a guild system or better friend system that actually makes players want to team up with regular allies rather than roll the dice every 15 minutes. The pace players expect matchmaking to go makes that direction difficult, in addition to the idea that many players would rather solo and not go up against 6stacks.

Hopefully we get some type of in-game system that leads to more people actually sticking with the players they like but who knows what can be done. The Achievement and Career Profile feature however feels a bit uninspired and sees little use at this point outside of being launch-game relics (sprays locked behind random things you should do, despite all the nerfs that may have happened to specific heroes) so I think improving it is a decent option for the game

8

Could I have doomfist in each slot?

9

Well we DID used to have top 5 most played heroes chart, before they removed it…

I made topics requesting it to come back for 31 months in a row straight, over 2.5 years in a row, before giving up the tradition

2 Likes
10

I agree with this point of view. Giving random strangers a glimpse at your most played heroes, if you’re someone for whom privacy is paramount, can and will lead to undesired interactions.

11

I mean wasn’t this one of the chief reasons why people complained about public profiles in the first place?

People taking your profile and then proceeding to tell you what to play, ask why you aren’t playing your main, being stereotyped, avoiding you because you play X…etc

2 Likes
12

This is exactly why private profiles were created. Coz toxic people were toxic in spawn room when someone didn’t pick whatever hero they thought they should pick. Why would Blizzard want to revert to that?

1 Like
13

Nah, private profiles came along because people were ashamed of their stats. I have left my public, and you want to know how many times I have had people root around to tell me what to play?

Zero, the answer is that doesnt happen.

2 Likes
14

Yeah, of course but I mean, this isn’t that relevant since no one is proposing to delete private profiles or something

Everything I wrote revolves around creating a better profile system and also creating achievements for players to chase – none of that requires people to put anything up there. The point is you get control over what to share if you want it.

Same thing with sprays - if you want the basic overwatch logo, no one will force you to change it. And the hover feature is simply QoL since clicking through menus on each to find a surprise “private” is poor design

15

These are great ideas, though I just feel like whatever more granular features are put into the profile system, there will be players getting abused for it (or players abusing that system).

For example, let’s say someone is not playing their highlighted hero because the team comp may need something different. I can see some toxic teammates calling them out for not playing their main.

Conversely, someone could highlight a particular hero and claim they have the right to instalock them… then proceed to stink up the match while a proper main next to them is forced to play something they don’t prefer in comp.

Then there’s players reading into it saying they are a garbage one-trick for highlighting hero XYZ who is unsuitable for the current match.

I like your ideas and it definitely adds to gamification and achievo progress to really make your OW account your own. But at the end of the day, the best thing to do is just hide your profile or not. I hate it too, but I don’t see how Blizz could engineer the toxicity out of this game’s community. People suck and will find any way to shame.

1 Like
16

You gave up the tradition? For shame. I mean, I don’t really blame you, not like they ever cared about anything even when it directly influences their monetary gain.

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17

If this was a thing, I’d highlight Torb, Symm, and Bastion just to get players to rage at me.

1 Like
18

They would rate at my genuine top 3. No need to troll for me!

19

I would absolutely just pick widow, bastion and doomfist.

1 Like
20

I am quite unsure about the ideas you have for achievements. Not gonna disagree or agree with them. That’s if other people want those ideas to happen or not. But I’ll be talking more about the career profiles here.

I actually think that is a brilliant idea. I, personally, don’t like how people hide their profiles, or how it auto-privates for you. The reason why this is is because I use those to try to understand my team better. I do this a lot more in Competitive than anywhere else, because, let’s say you were outstanding on Ashe in stats and hours, but you play Bastion instead. Bastion isn’t working we say, and I could ask you to play a character that could perform better in the situation, who would be Ashe. So, to showcase the characters you want to be represented by can be gr8. I’d use it to show people my best Tank, D.va, best DPS, Tracer, and best Support, Brigitte via skill and mains probs forever.

The only caution I have, though, is if people mis-use the career profile change. So, let’s say you showcase your WORST characters instead of your Best. People would assume your best is your worst, but in reality, your showcasing your worst characters where you should be showing your best. This is 1 direction of a mis-use. Another could be you using it but then you have another character that is actually better than the ones your showing. So, let’s say you were playing like a GM Tracer, but you showcase your other dps, which would be more mediocure, to be Mccree, Widow and Orisa. Tracer should be shown as one of your best characters, not these others that could be more ok skilled. Other than this, I am in complete agreement with this idea.

Thanks 4 ur time,
The D.va, Brigitte, Tracer, Orisa, Mercy and Widowmaker main at ur service,
Marcane