This isn’t an f-bomb drop mic post or anything, simply my experience.
I quit playing Overwatch for a month, and at the end of it the world wasn’t violence-free, toxic people weren’t on another planet, but I was/am happier- and felt lightweight.
The game will never be free of toxicity, but I believe (don’t adopt my opinions just to hate) that developers have failed in areas that should have thrived, and customer dissatisfaction at the game was made into toxicity.
I feel you. You begin to ask yourself why you continue playing when you no longer derive joy from the experience. I think the key (assuming you still want to play) would be to stay off the forums (far too much whining) and find a group of friends who play for fun. People that put fun above winning, at least. Focusing on winning and losing makes it a stressful experience, and toxicity is just a side-effect of this huge focus.
My friends and I just use losing games as practice. We ask ourselves "why are they beating us? What are we doing wrong? Is there any hero I could swap to to make things better? We never look at others, only ourselves, and it cultivates a sort of self-improvement cycle that is the exact opposite of toxicity. My games have been so good ever since. I don’t win every game, sure, but losing definitely doesn’t hurt as much any more.
That’s good. I’ll still be binge playing the game and having fun, but if you don’t like it and feel better not playing it then enjoy it.
It still amuses me that people blame a video game for how people act. This is real simple, There are crappy people out there. You have an option to interact with them or simply mute them.
No team multiplayer game is ever toxic free when there is a competitive mode. This is true for RL sports also.
Some people can learn to ignore it, others get bothered by it.
What OP said is true. Though it is also true that the game is better with friends, I mean what game isn’t? But mostly because if you play with friends you’re bound to have fun and you can easily block toxic people. If you play by yourself not only do you have to deal with horrible people, you also get burned out real fast.
Its just a video game. It should not have such a huge bearing on your daily happiness and if it does you have deeper issues at play.
Everyone cares so much about this! Blizzard will change the game how ever you want to get you playing again! I’m sure!
OP’s sentiments are true for any platform where people interact with each other anonymously on the Internet. It’s misguided to attribute all of these things exclusively to Overwatch.
I stopped playing for a month or so and when I came back, I could see the issues in a clearer way. Things haven’t been tackled, but at the same time, the toxicity doesn’t affect me as much either, I just mute everyone and even myself.
That helps a lot.
i feel you on this topic ive quit overwatch multiple times throughout the 2 years ive been playing it, but now ive almost gotten used to the toxicity and it makes me worried about the future of the game seeing that it is becoming more and more toxic overtime. Its really just the nature of this game since its so team oriented people have to rely on others quite alot resulting in people blaming each other for every little thing.
Truth when it comes to real sports. Do people think basketball, football, soccer players etc. arent talking smack to each other out there on the court or field? HELL YEAH they are are.
It doesnt make it right by any means but come on guys…expecting the game to turn into Hello Kitty Online G-Rated fun-zone with zero bad words and everyone is a unicorn is delusional.
/r/murderedbywords
(am I allowed to do subreddit references here?)
What do you guys want the devs to do exactly? What possibly can they do more than what they are already doing? The auto suspend feature is rampant and anyone can get suspend for saying something so simple and innocuous as “butt head” in the forums and the game. They are watching streamers and punishing people they catch in the act too…
Seriously…what else do you want them to do? They pretty much suspend anyone for saying anything at this point. I am actually pretty annoyed about how overbearing and cringy the “fight against toxicity” is getting. People are going to be afraid to even say “good game” for fear of getting reported for griefing or abusive chat. Its kinda ridiculous.
they could make the game more serious with punishment and competitive mode for non-trolls. but they need 30mil accounts for the money and they dont care. they will never care. i thought that the game was young and they are trying to fix it. i was so wrong. throwing is promoted in ow. i dont care about toxicity, i have tools to mute people so this is not a problem.
I’m sure if the game was 12v12 or 8v8 it would be less toxicity. As a Battlefield player it’s less common to experience it in match. Overwatch is so teambased and small that it requires strangers to get together and perform well because individual effort shines so much more in these matches having a weak link destroys cohesiveness and makes winning that much harder.
I’m right here with you mate made a thread yesterday about guilds and largely cited the sentiments expressed here.
in 24 hours it got to 9k and still no bliz response. I really hope that the devs address social features that can maintain a player base otherwise toxicity will continue to go unchecked, and i will be in the same boat as you mate <3 for people interested in such a feature please voice below before the post dies due to the new daily structure of these forums, and the lack of bumping. unable to link in the forums 
so if anyone feels the same way here due to social reasons please join us!
My issue isn’t with the game but with the people playing it. There is only so much Blizz can do.
I’ve worked for 2 person businesses that put more effort into quick responses to customer feedback than Blizz does…
They need a closed PTR server that you can apply for alongside the current server. And they need to integrate surveys on the forums for the general population and also for the closed PTR players. This way they can see the numbers side by side and see where the opinions coincide and pinpoint issues quicker.
They say this is our game, but they either do not listen to the ‘owners’ or they take so long to address it and even longer to find a fix.
If Blizz was actually rated by current feedback, their rating would suffer as a company. They really need to take advantage of feedback tools that exist to strengthen the community ties.
But just my bad opinion.
Its the unholy mix of pick up game and teamwork is paramount that makes it toxic. A guild system (even if it was something as simple as pokemon go’s arbitrary three teams or groups based on OWL teams) would at least make us familiar with other players as actual people with quirks limitations and playstyles. Even if the people you know suck, at least you know exactly how they suck. Strangers performing weirdly in games is a like a dripping tap.
I can be an insufferable dps zen for example. Unless there’s nobody engaging at all I’m not going to be healing you because I like to put the regen orb and discord orb on two people fighting rather than trying to top people up in health. If you don’t know me you probably want to put my head through a wall for playing him badly and see every death as my fault. If you do know me, you know I’ll have your back. Everybody is like that and its really easy to get angry about the actions of faceless strangers. 9/10 if you tilt its your teammates not the enemy and that’s easily preventable.