A bunch of people that I know (including me, hi) in recent days got hit with a silence without warning. It’s… a significant proportion of people, many of them for the first time ever.
I feel like Blizzard tuned the auto-action threshold behind the scenes, which explains the lack of a warning.
Also, the appeal system is not worth it. If you try to appeal a silence, the game master reviewing your case will skim your logs, say “look one time 6 months ago you called someone a poopyhead - 14 day silence deserved.” And that will be that.
Please improve the clarity of the account action process and consider investing resources into improving the number and quality of your customer support workforce.
Also, it would be helpful to mark a player as “silenced” so that their allies can identify why they aren’t communicating.
Seriously, you deserve that for such offense, lol.
But I agree with this one. I never got banned or silenced in game, but seeing lot of people claiming, how it can happen anytime for anything (and that best way to avoid this is to not use chat at all O.o) I am worried. I invested some money over those years into my account - many players did and it´s only fair to be clear about reasons, when you ban someone for anything.
Yeah I just got a warning for the first time ever on Tuesday, so I immeadiately turned off all chats.
I say some controversial stuff, like “BRING BACK 2CP”, “ILIOS BAD”, and “BRING BACK PRIDE” (Specifically on Midtown), etc. But Ive been saying stuff like this since Season 3, and just got a warning.
In a way its nice to see that reports actually do something on console, but now that Ive turned off all chats, I am one less person in a match that can report people who are seriously abusive.
Same here, got my first account silence in OW since 2016 lol.
Cool how it takes up half the chat permanently that I still look at for comms btw, definitely makes me not want to go all out right when the ban expires
Great tip!
Good thing I didn’t already type in the post you replied to, why I want the chat to stay on. You’d have wasted my time and seemed really obnoxious!
Oh but wait, now that I’ve denied all TWO options you’re aware of on this great forum, I must be some hypocrite right?
It can’t be that the system the game is forcing me to interact with has any flaws, nope
Sorry if it came across that way - I definitely agree with you that you should be able to still see your chat but unfortunately I don’t know of a way to hide the red box thing without hiding all of the chat!
To clarify my stance I agree that this is poor design! It shouldn’t be this way!
Hey, it’s better than no info at all fam.
Just sad to say that the community will take posts like yours, and just use them as ways to hush criticism.
I’m not mad at you or your option here, I just don’t see a reason to slow down on calling OW out
Overwatch gets a lot of unfair criticism these days but I think this is one of the few genuine criticisms that I could level at the game - the penalty system needs a lot of changes in how it operates!
I had never had any adverse actions in 7 years… until I got chat banned twice just this month!! And I have it all figured out - groups reporting players. Here’s why:
I usually play the same modes in Arcade, so often I see the same players, so I recognize groups, and also when they requeue and it’s the same, it becomes very clear. It’s not uncommon for groups to bully me for my support picks, in particular playing Mercy. Yesterday at a loss “stupid mercy player”. Earlier this week, “GET OFF ZEN”. When I hear these things, I reply back in kind, but NEVER with banned speech, so to speak. EVER.
In particular two days ago, when my teammate told me to get off Zen, I noticed that there were two console players in our 4v4, so clearly it was a 3 stack. One of those players had almost no damage done at all, so I said “this is why I avoid console players” and they all went aggro on me. Now I’m chat banned and that was the only controversy I’ve had.
Lastly, the action email had no information at all to what I said, which means it was auto-actioned. So again, it’s clear these groups are mass-reporting and taking advantage of that system. And it’s working.
You’re fortunate that the GM’s response included specific information about chat logs and the reason for your account being silenced, no matter how dubious that reason may be. In many instances, the appeal process lacks transparency to a startling degree. The most one can usually hope for is a cursory reply that states, “Upon reviewing the logs, it was confirmed that you violated the Terms of Use,” without any further clarification.
This canned response suggests that moderators may be operating from a set script, offering copy-and-paste answers rather than genuinely engaging with the appeal. This approach doesn’t just undermine trust in the moderation process - it raises serious questions about the system’s overall effectiveness and fairness.
The moderation system’s current state is deeply flawed, prompting concerns not only about its lack of transparency but also about its overall competence. With such an approach, it’s hard to believe that the system is designed with the goal of ensuring a fair and enjoyable gaming environment.
The whole defense matrix doesn’t work. You can report people for anything but it seems to punish the wrong people. Usually the one doing reporting. You get 5+ reports because you have one game where you pop off or you’re perhaps more skilled at a hero, the game automatically bans you for cheating.
You have to physically appeal with proof of the fact you’re not because they don’t actually check the footage it’s done on number of people who report you. Yeah that’s great against toxic people who obviously receive a high number of reports but it isn’t a one glove fits all.
Yeah that’s like, toxic, dude. Everything even remotely negative, sarcastic or critical is toxic. Even if you say something positive, it’s toxic. If I disagree with you, you’re toxic. Toxic!!!
When you get slapped with an unearned silence / ban don’t worry, you can still comfort yourself with a shiny plastic-looking skin recolor for 26 dollars!
I think Blizzard finally just got so fed-up with bad player behavior that they put in the zero-warnings policy.
They already told us roughly from Overwatch 2 launched, they were going to take a heavy approach to bad player behavior since the community was tired of the poor behavior of players that otherwise is needless banter.
Me, I turned all forms of chat OFF in these matches since they seam to not want to review chat policies and look at instigators. When they apply the “Punish all” policy. its time to turn off chat and be silent about it.
Overwatch has been polluted with keyboard warriors in live matches for a very long time now. The memes, omegalulz and youtube videos of players losing their minds in chat over really petty and otherwise pointless issues, is what brought fourth this.
Players acting out in games, is the #1 reason why people do not come to play a game in the first place. The whole “gamer speak” culture is yesteryear.
Keyboard warriors also have a bad issue of stopping in the match to insight an argument, which causes almost everyone to go afk in the match and start typing insults, instead of just playing the match.
