Is the Reporting System Creating an Idiocracy?

Competitive Discussion
1

Follow this scenario:

  1. Player A solo queues to Masters tier where he belongs and is now trying to make it to Grandmaster.

  2. Player B pays money to get boosted to Masters so his friends think that he is good.

Now A and B get placed in a match together and on the same team. Player B knows that it will be almost impossible for him to win this match because he is boosted and so far out of his skill level. He knows his only chance for his team to win is if his other teammates play their very best hero’s, use teamwork, coordinate attack, communicate, and change hero’s when appropriate. So Player B communicates a lot, encourages people to change, asks everyone to have good teamwork etc…verbally, he is the ideal teammate, yet he has no idea how to play at this rank and cannot contribute.

Player A on the other hand knows that as long as nobody on his team has been boosted/carried, his team has a good chance of winning because he has made it to GM on his other accounts. After trying to hold the first point and losing it quickly, Player A is confused, because he killed 2 people before the enemy even started pushing yet they still lost the point…“what is going on?” he thinks.

Player A starts to observe his team to see what issues there are so he can make call-outs and adjustments. He sees B, who is playing tank, playing very oddly for this rank. B is out of position, not peeling, playing way too far back, not staying in the line of site of healers, chasing people down by overextending and getting killed. Just these observations alone are enough to know that this person is boosted/carried, he views Player B’s profile and sees clear evidence of him being boosted (silver tier for 9 seasons, and now is suddenly 3300.)

After losing the second point instantly they change to attack and are struggling to do anything. Player A sees that by all practical means, this match is impossible to win. He is literally losing a match because Player B is carried/boosted, yet player B is still communicating on voice chat, asking Player A to change hero’s because “it’s not working”. Player B starts throwing out trendy terminology to pretend like he knows what he’s talking about “we just need better ULT economy, Player A can you use better positioning?”.

Player B is trying his very best to over-communicate his way to a win since he doesn’t have near the skill it takes to win, as well as pushing blame on other people so as a way to distract from the fact that he is actually the problem.

Player A sees past this garbage and says “You know what’s actually the problem? Your profile says you’ve been silver tier for 9 seasons in a row, and now suddenly you are ranked 3300. We can’t win because we have a boosted/carried player here”. Player B immediately takes action and reports Player A for abusive chat, and since Player B has been so nice and communicative, the other players feel justified in reporting Player A for being mean to Player B.

What happens if this continues enough? Good players will be turned off and pushed out of Overwatch, while boosted/carried players are protected and inadvertently encouraged to continue what they’re doing.

I think the reporting system is inherently not healthy for gaming, it gets the people who care the most about winning suspended, while protecting the “casuals” who have dubious play. Want to keep it?..that’s fine but what I’m saying is there are better solutions to resolve the underlying root cause of the issue: What we need is for Blizz to force the SMS system that is in tact for top 500, over all tiers to prevent multiple accounts from being played. As for boosting, each account should be tied to a hardware ID of a computer so you can only use that account on 1 specific computer unless you change it (can only change it once every 20 days or so). This should help cut down on boosting immensely. If you want to boost someone you will actually have to go through the pain of playing with them on your team.

Hidden profiles and reporting system are bandages for an inherently toxic system. I’d like to see Blizz focus more on root cause solutions that will make the game better overall while resolving the aforementioned issues.

TL:DR

  • We need each Overwatch account to be registered with a hardware ID of a computer so it can only be played on that specific computer. This can be updated and changed once every 20 days in case you get a new computer.
  • We need SMS system for all tiers, not just top 500 to prevent multiple accounts from playing competitive. This will prevent players from “practicing” in competitive.
  • The above will cut down on toxicity naturally, as well as making competitive more balanced and enjoyable due to less boosted/carried players.
2 Likes
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Or… And here’s a Wild idea…

What if Player A does the same instead of attacking Player B?

“Player B, we need that Rein Shield over on the right.”

“Player B, Winston dove the Support, turn and peel for them!”

“Player B, Rein’s not working here, can you go D.Va?”

Player B may or may not listen, but now instead of attacking the player because you think they’re a boosted account you’re offering advise that could actually help.

Now Player B doesn’t report or complain about Player A being abusive.

As for your other proposed changes.

No to the Hardware ID. Because I have four computers in this house in multiple rooms and I don’t always play a game on one specific computer. This is true of a lot of streamers if they have full set ups as they might have a personal PC off to the side separate from the one in their main streaming room. You’ve also made it impossible for me to play the game on my Laptop since I’m “hardwired” to my Tower at home.

Multiple accounts are encouraged and allowed. Deliberately playing bad to “Smurf” is bad, but having a DPS Account, Tank Account and Support Account is perfectly normal.

Neither of your proposed changes would “Cut down on toxicity” as the moment you remove reporting those players who are already toxic will just get worse and more insulting.

1 Like
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I don’t think you have empathy for what’s described in my scenario because you don’t play at a rank that people get boosted to. Trust me, if you saw it as much as I do you would be singing a different song. Your response sounds very mature and decent on a forum board, but in a real life scenario is not realistic advice. The hard truth is that when you see a player who has literally been silver tier or lower for 10 seasons and then suddenly is at rank 3300, they are probably boosted. Your advice here is for me to actually help this person and teach them how to play 2300+SR above where they belong. No thanks, and you probably wouldn’t either if you were in my situation.

Four gaming rigs inside a house that you alternate through? Your scenario is the exception, not the norm.

Yes it’s normal, that’s why it should change. People are using multiple accounts to practice in competitive and it creates toxicity, they don’t care about winning.

IMO if we resolve the reasons why these people are toxic and they will have less of a reason to get more insulting. There will always be toxic people online but Overwatch feeds and breeds it.

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Exactly, in your opinion this will reduce toxicity. You don’t have any data to support it, just an opinion. As to your actual points.

You don’t actually know rather or not I have another account, so blindly assuming anything based on my rank is a bit off. (For the record, I don’t, but just making that point).

Yes yes, I’ve heard the “You don’t understand because you’re not (insert rank) like me.” You’d be surprised. If I can shot call and offer advice to braindead players who won’t do basic things down here in Bronze then I can certainly do the same if I ever get to Diamon/Master/whatever. You get more flies with Sugar than Vinegar. I’m not always perfect, but ultimately I am responsible for my actions and no matter how frustrated I may personally be I don’t go Toxic in chat or start insulting other people.

You’re claiming having multiple rigs is an exception but I’m doubting that. Honestly yes, my having four is an exception, but I know tons of people with 2 (Tower and Laptop). So 4 might be an exception but more than one isn’t.

As for multiple accounts. Yes, people use multiple accounts to play different things. IE They’re a Grand master DPS but haven’t quite gotten the hang of things Tanking. Now they can play both roles at the skill they actually have without sabotaging things. I don’t see this as a bad thing.

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I sympathise with your situation but your very way of communicating is grinding on my nerves. You’re overly aggressive, overly defensive so yeah, that’s what makes people report you. When a player is trying to communicate with the team they are generally well liked and if they are spouting BS nobody is going to report you for correcting them. Now if you’re quiet the whole match and only sound off to attack and accuse a player you can be damn sure that’s going to piss people off.

3 Likes
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Somewhere over the past 5 years people have started saying that if you don’t have hard evidence of something then it has no credibility. Every thing that has hard evidence behind it started off as an opinion. That means that some opinions are hard facts waiting to be proven, I believe this is one of them and because I don’t have hard evidence doesn’t discredit anything.

An actual silver tier player in a mid diamond game telling actual diamond players what to do (when he has no idea what he’s talking about) should grind your nerves far more than someone telling him off. The fact that it doesn’t can give me an idea of where you stand : you probably value a good attitude over good game-play, there’s nothing wrong with that, but at higher ranks people in general prefer to have people who pull their weight over people who are friendly. In other words, they would rather win 10 games with toxic people than lose 10 games with someone who has a good attitude.

Maybe they could implement SMS for platinum tiers and above since that may be the cut-off where people start to value good play over good attitude.

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Wait a second. I’m not saying the guy is not a total ***hat for getting boosted but I’m not talking to him or trying to help him; I’m trying to help you. I think you’re 100% right in your complaint and it does indeed pisses me off that people get boosted and ruin it for others. I myself am still in silver…probably have like 30 hours of comp in all seasons put together and I don’t feel like I know enough of comp (and certainly not higher tiers) to comment but I do know people and people will have knee-jerk reactions to anyone who voices off in a less than perfectly polite way (I just came off a comp match where this one guy kept shouting orders contrary to the decisions of the team, which prompted another guy to start shouting “You’re not my boss!!”…an adult man actually screaming this during a match…everything just crumbled for us…)

So basically what I’m saying is, you should totally rip that guy a new one, but you need to do it in a way where you don’t immediately come off as the bad guy. Is it passive-aggressive? Probably. Is is necessary? Sadly, yes.

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Um, if you’re only seeing evidence based support for claims in the past 5 years I’m not sure what to say.

Burden of proof is always on the person making a claim or requesting a change.

You’re technically right, all Facts started off as observations. Where you’re wrong is that everyone who actually proves things as facts goes about finding evidence before people believe them on a wide scale.

You gave your theory, fine. But until you have actual support it’s just your opinion, regargless of rather or not it’s eventually right.

As for the horrible Silver Player telling Diamonds what to do. If his advise is right, then it’s right, regardless of his “true” rank. If it’s wrong, then point out why it’s wrong.

Sorry, at no point will you sway me or many others that it’s so hard to be helpful and polite vs telling someone how bad they are.

Specially when you can’t actually prove they’re boosted. There’s absolutely suggestive evidence, but there’s no proof.

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Please provide evidence of this claim.

Please provide evidence of this claim.

Please provide evidence of this claim.

This is your opinion and you have no evidence to support this claim.

Is this really how you do arguments? How unproductive. I won’t be responding to you anymore.

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You know in your haste to be obnoxious to that more or less polite guy, you demanded evidence for some stuff that wasn’t even a claim.

I find your initial example to be a very poor argument for your desire that SMS be required for all accounts. First of all, Player B would have a private profile now, though that changes nothing. What actually would happen is nothing Player B says matters, because he would immediately feed his brains out and generally his team would give him toxic grief over it because they’re mad and will quickly notice. Boosted players are VERY obvious and Player A is not going to get reports unless he is crossing the line anyway.

You’re also assuming the boosted player is some master manipulator rather than just a random idiot who paid to have their rank increased; in my experience boosted players don’t communicate at all, and aren’t very friendly when they do talk.

Even if your example was compelling, it doesn’t happen enough to justify the hassle of making every single player apply SMS to their account. Blizzard is simply never going to put that burden on players, and even top 500 can play without it; it just keeps the leaderboard cleaner.

So I think there’s no reason to go with your suggestion. Boosting happens, but the situation you described does not. SMS protect is not a solution to boosting. Being toxic is not a solution to boosted players in your game, and everyone is perfectly capable of complaining about a boosted player without being reported.

Be polite to people you play with. If you are absolutely horrifically toxic to someone, it does not matter if they were boosted or not, you deserved the reports.

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You’re joking at this point I trust? Assuming not let’s address your points.

Evidence of Burden of proof.
I mean just for starters we have:
https colon //en .wikipedia .org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)#Proving_a_negative

Not that Wikipedia is the ultimate source or anything but it’ll give you a good job starting to understand the concept. If you want I’ll hunt down multiple sources and post them.

Evidence that proven facts rely on evidence.
Most Court Systems, the Scientific Method, established rules for changing laws or acknowledging new facts all stem from this. Pick a category and I’ll give specific examples. Easiest is the scientific method where you specifically have to test your hypothesis/theory (Opinion) and report on the results of those tests before it will be seen as credible.

Evidence of Right vs Wrong.
If the “Silver player” makes a call that Winston dove the backline, peel for Mercy. And Winston dove the backline and Mercy needs support, the call is right regardless of the source.
If the “Silver player” makes a call that Rein should be more aggressive and charge in when you’re on defense holding the choke against a non-aggressive team, the call is wrong regardless of source.

Evidence of swaying myself and others about being rude.

My evidence is self evident in #1: My own posts where I’m telling you I don’t get toxic and expect the same from others and #2: Another poster already giving a similar sentiment unprompted by me. We can also look at Professional coaches who offer advice to all ranks of players without bashing or claiming fakes. (Jayne is an easy one).

For the record this is not “How I do arguements” I pointed out why I disagreed with your original ideas. It was only when you said “IMO X is the source of toxicity and removing it will fix things.” That I said “Alright, do you have evidence to support this opinion?”

IE once you made a flat claim I asked you to support your arguement. Hardly a shocking or wierd stance to have.

PS, I do believe you you said you wouldn’t be responding to me. I post this answer purely to address the error in logic of your post for anyone who happens to be reading the thread. If you no longer respond to me I doubt I’ll be saying anything else either.

Of course if you want to continue discussing by all means. I don’t believe in “Gotchas” and won’t be seeing it as anything negative if you do choose to continue responding.

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I didn’t offer SMS protect as a solution to boosting, hardware ID matching to accounts was the solution and it would greatly reduce boosting. SMS protect could help with multiple accounts being played in competitive which is another issue.

The burden of putting up with a mixed bag of players in every game, poor matchmaking because of boosted players, losses because of boosted players is far greater than using hardware ID or SMS protect. I think your counter argument isn’t compelling and holds little ground even with casual reasoning.

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So your suggestion about SMS is to prevent a problem which is not actually the one you’re trying to address and which many pro players and Blizzard have said is not an actual issue?

I know Pro Players with 7 Accounts who openly admit to having them that they play pure Support on one, Pure Tank on another, certain mix and matches on another, etc.

Quite simply, having multiple accounts and using them to play different characters that aren’t your mains is not in any way against the rules or spirit. If I am a Top 500 Tank and I create a new account to play purely DPS and I end up in Diamond with you, that’s where I belong in that role. It’s not like people are making alt accounts, using their mains to climb
all the way up and then switching. (I’m sure some do, but that’s still not against the rules).

As for your second point to Arzoo. Your perception is that “Mixed players” is more of a burden to you than the hassle of ID and SMS protection. But Blizzard can actually study the data of how many of us willingly put SMS on just for security, how many did so when perks were offered (Like more bag space in wow) and how many just flat out refused.

They can see how many people are comfortable with it vs not and make a judgement call where as you are making a judgement call from just your own perspective.

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I’m addressing two issues, multiple accounts in comp, and boosting. There is clearly an issue with toxicity and overall disdain of the competitive system. Indicators of this are all over the forum board constantly, on a daily basis. I believe (know) a large portion of this toxicity is because multiple accounts are being used. You’re sugarcoating the use of multiple accounts by saying people use them as a “tank only”, “support only” etc. Yes, I’m sure that happens but probably what’s happening more often than that is players have a “try-hard” account and a “casual” account that they try out new hero’s and strategies on. This leads to a toxic environment when you have someone on your team who is practicing new hero’s.

I’m sure they can. Where I have my doubts is people’s ability to correctly interpret findings. Did they consider that the people who “flat out refused” are the ones who are causing an issue? Maybe they are the ones who have some other totally separate account/identity and the SMS didn’t allow them to use it? We’ll never know because there’s no communication around this.

I could rephrase this entire thread into one sentence it would be “If I were in charge there would be far less toxicity due to inherent gameplay and matchmaking flaws.” There are obvious solutions that are being ignored, even beyond the ones I presented here. Sometimes I wonder if Blizz thinks “well the game is popular so people are happy.” No, the game is popular because it’s a “pretty good game” and mostly because Blizzard has brand value that makes people want to play their games simply because they are Blizzard. My estimation is that brand value is being used up and tanking massively with the way Overwatch currently works. In 5 years from now if a survey was given “how would you rate Blizzard first person shooter games” it would probably rate “fair”, not “good”.

People are putting up with Overwatch simply because Blizz is the biggest gaming company. Overwatch could d be much better.

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Before I run through the whole thread. Do we really think that boosted (as in payed to have an account moved to a much, much higher Sr) players that are therefore extremely helpful and humble over comb are common occurrence?

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Apparently yes?

S23, Even then, I don’t see how that’s an issue and neither does Blizzard nor Pro Players. That “off” account you use to play more casually and test out strategies? It’ll rank according to how well it’s played. So either the person will still be close to their real skill in which case it’s irrelevent, or they’ll perform worse and derank.

Again, Blizzard, Pro and Casual alike have seen nothing wrong with this. I understand you don’t like it, but I don’t see any compelling evidence to disagree with the arguements that have been presented.

If you were in charge there would be less toxicity because you’d force everyone to have one account and lock in security? You’re ignoring something important. Profit margin.

So here’s the deal. Either there are tons and tons of extra accounts or there aren’t.
If there aren’t, then your solution fixes very little and thus does not help reduce toxicity.
If there are tons, then your solution removes a ton of income from the company which is bad.
Neither answer supports your solution from a business perspective.

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Really? Even after their last patch was almost exclusively focused towards toxicity? LFG, endorsement levels, private profiles… these are solutions to toxicity.

In fact, I think I even read a post the other day from a dev, stating that reports are down about 20% since their patch was released.

Pretty much this.

My “practice” account is ranked lower than my main. It prevents me from ruining games on my main account when I’m playing with characters that I’m not as skilled with. It’s actually a good thing for the player base.

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You see I don’t think there’s any issue with multiple accounts as long as they play consistent within each one (if one is their diamond mercy account they don’t swap to their gm widow on it).

I’m just saying that I don’t think actual boosted accounts are such a prevelent problem. Then within those that do exist, most get the boosting so they can get to the rank they think they belong. So those players don’t gain any of the extra com bonuses and don’t have a humble attitude. Some people may exist in the situation described in the past, but I’d wager that the situation is so rare that the inverse outcome of the system is basically a non-factor.

It’s sort of like if you had a clock that would randomly go backwards a second every 3 months. Sure, it isn’t good. The clock in that moment is doing the exact opposite as it should. But the situation comes up so infrequently that it’s ignorable.

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While I’m not condoning boosting or anything, it’s not going to stop. As long as people want it, other people will provide it.

How about instead of that mentality of player A and just start raging and blaming at the boosted player, pretty much an absolute guarantee of a loss, give them some advice or something. Sure, go ahead and get your frustration out or get your couple digs in or whatever, and maybe say something like “it appears our tank is boosted, he was silver 10 seasons now diamond out of nowhere. Let’s show this noob how it is done up here” And then do more shot calling or helping or something.

I’m just spitballing here so I know theres plenty wrong with this idea, but the answer cant be let’s just rage and continue the toxic ways…

Take me for example. I was gold for 8 seasons. Season 9 hit diamond my first time. At first glance, it might look like I was boosted. But no, I just grinded it out.

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My experience is that people who are boosted don’t have the mental capacity to use voice chat. Furthermore they never select a good team comp.