Report Tool (Sorry for wot)
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A new report category called Emergency is now added to the report tool and can be access in all areas you can report a player except for the quick-select report button in the Scoreboard.
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You can then report instances of social communication that implies a threat of extreme harm to another person or a group of persons.
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False reporting other players using these categories may result in actions issued on the reporting player’s account. Please remember to abide by the Blizzard In-Game Code of Conduct including when reporting other players.
OK? I get the idea I totally do - but I think this will be like opening a can of worms and there will be a lot of questionable banns - on both sides ( the reporting player and the one who gets reported)… What is considered to be a threat of extreme harm?
How would you rank theese situations?
- “I will kick everone in the face” (cough* Kiri) - I would say No
It said for a fun reference to the cinematic by Blizzard
- “Kys” - I would say Yes
Had it said to me 40-50 times - there IS a risk someone might take it seriously!
- “Dang you beat me - I really hate you and want to kick you in the n*ts”?
It can be considered for being Abusive text chat - but shouldnt make an instabann.
- “Look - If I ever see you I will throw a train in your face” I would say No
Extreme violance but It will never happen.
- Example - A russian player talks bad to an ukranian player - after the game the ukranian player says - Hope you get sent to the front and we meet" Is that a threat of extreme violance? The ukranian player cant possibly make the russian player to get sent to the front ofcourse - but can a situation that describes a violant situation - but never will happen be enough reason to bann an account (the ukranian acc in this case)?
The problem is that one person CAN consider it to be a real threat of harm - “He says he is gonna make physical harm Geez I dont wanna get kicked in the n*ts” while another just laughs at it and see it as a joke/banter. So if its not a bann for the Ukranian in the example #5 above - would the Russian player be banned for false reporting instead?
Im honestly worried when you can see a situation from 2 sides and there is a banning decision to be made - who will get it? and → Who will decide if it should be a bann or not? I guess it must be impossible for any live/real person/gamemaster to handle the reports manually - which leaves it to some automated system or AI.
I have written my concerns before, that the T (talk) function is going to die! Today most players are afraid to write anything - which is sad bc its a great function and can add so much use and fun to the game - if players are too afraid to get misunderstood and reported… they will stop talking and dont experience the benefit/fun of using team/match chat.
Im afraid this will just add to the above and make people stop using text 
And lastly - what does “Child Abuse” mean in the report UI tool? Can it not be abused by someone saying “I am a minor - i am 9 years old - and you said kick my balls - naughty words - Im going to report you with child abuse option so you get banned” Meanwhile he is in fact Greg, 48 years old and 250 lbs that just was trolling. Is Blizzard gonna need proof of age now to be able to play Overwatch?? LoL 
4 Likes
Solution: Don’t speak to anyone in this community in game, ever.
Squelch chat. Play the game to the best of your ability and go about your day.
/hidechat yay
10 Likes
If they’re going to hand off appeals and resolutions of these “urgent” reports to the same workcenter drones they’ve been doing the appeals to now… yeah… this is going to be horribly abused.
10 Likes
If someone tells me to kill myself, I will test it for you and see what happens. If I get banned for reporting someone who tells me to commit seppuku, that’s it for this game. I will go Mahvel only without a second thought. Real talk.
6 Likes
They also say in the notes your account can/will be actioned if you abuse this tool/use it in the wrong way.
This is more evidence that devs do read the forums.
There was a thread a few weeks ago asking for just this. And now we have it.
I’ve noticed it a few times recently where a thread pops up, then next patch or two or next season, they add what one person here asked for. Then in the patch notes or dev blog they say “We have heard what all the players are asking for so here you go”… Then I’m sitting here thinking… Well I saw 1 guy on the forum ask for it once…
Unless they get a dev or mod to plant the idea into the community so they have that fake good will and a reason to say “here’s what you asked for”… But that’s a stretch.
2 Likes
I think that special report thing shouldn’t be used in most of your examples. I would only use it in a situation where a person says “I will find you through your IP address and kill you” or any explicit threat like that. “You should get kicked in the face” can be handled by regular reporting tools.
3 Likes
I’d say it’s more a case of if we hear it on the forums, it’s probably already a widespread complaint. I take “new” accounts posting with a grain of salt, but sometimes they’re just someone who got fed up enough to make a forum account and hopefully get someone who cares… so they’ve probably tried a bunch of other avenues as well.
2 Likes
But with this one specifically, I’ve only seen it once. And it was directly asking for a new report category for harmful threats… And then a month later we have it “players wanted it”…
I’ve only ever seen that one guy ask for it. Never seen anyone else care to ask for that specific thing. I’ve seen players ask for harsher consequences on that speech, seen that for years and years and nothing done about it… Then a month after a specific thing was asked for we finally get it.
I can’t remember the other instances where this happened… But I remember it was similar… I didn’t see anyone but one person on the forum ask for this or even talk about this… And “players asked for it here we deliver”…
Unless there’s tonnes of talk on reddit about stuff that doesn’t or barely gets mentioned here.
1 Like
I’ve personally seen about 20 different threads asking for SOME way of making a critical report for either ingame threats or egregiously offensive language since Defense matrix became a thing.
Many get removed or quickly buried.
EDIT: I’m not poopooing your idea or suggestion that someone who does stuff actually reads this forum, but I also work off the knowledge that the official declaration was they think we are , slightly paraphrased: overly loud and negative.
4 Likes
Ah okay. I come here pretty often for a few years now and that’s the first time I’ve seen someone directly ask for that report function. I guess maybe I overestimate how much I’m here hah.
It’s possible they get the mods to note down ideas they think are decent and relay them to a/the devs.
TBH I’d do that if I had a game and forum with mods. Get someone else to sift the garbage for the potential gold. They might as well as they’re sifting the garbage already.
2 Likes
I’ve also seen what Krotoan is referencing, if that helps. Nobody can read all the threads all the time!
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Supposedly this is what the Blue text CM people who post the stickys are partially responsible for.
Given the actual attention we seem to get though… who knows what’s happening?
Maybe someday we’ll fix the forum portraits not being able to be changed for the entire life of OW2.
… I CAN TRY!
2 Likes
lol its suduko 
jk jk
but yeah, ive recived at least 3 or 4 irl threats in-game,
and had at least 2 swatting threats directed at me and had to call our sheriffs office to submit evidence of it.
so yeah, i guess i can see why blizzard is doing this.
1 Like
Honestly I took it as limited to severe threats. Like a “this needs to go to some authority ASAP” report, not Johnny is a poor sport, disruptively mean/rude butmunch and needs his talks to others privileges revoked type report.
Ideally this report function collects dust and no player is ever justified in using it due to there being no reason to, but having it there (provided these reports are specially reviewed and relevant info is properly passed on to people with more power than just unplugging the game or revoking game comms access) can’t really hurt. With the blurb about abusing it potentially leading to account actions I’d hedge my bets that it is specially reviewed, but who knows for sure besides Blizz themselves.
This option was created because a certain people are uncomfortable and dislike getting pushback for supporting a country doing war crimes iykyk. I promise u this is why this exists 
. How many times we seen racial slurs being thrown around and nothings being done about it. Think about it.
I think its more insulting that they have the resources to punish false reporting, but they’re only doing it for extremely 2 niche conditions that will ironically be abused like the other reports.
What a complete waste of time.
1 Like
This isn’t a new can of worms, it’s a big problem with the entire report system already. There’s no defining scenarios, words, etc. that say what any reportable action is, and it’s all completely unmoderated which means every report is valid.
If they actually moderate the new button I would be extremely surprised. I feel like the more likely scenario is that if you use “emergency” too often, a program will flag your account and probably just automatically set fire to your computer or something before blizzard ever uses humans that lifts a finger.
2 Likes
I’ve requested or pointed out a couple of things over the years that were fixed but few or no one else asked for, so yeah they’ve got people browsing the forums. However, I can’t say that my issues were described as popular in the patch notes.
The first time for me was 2019 when I pointed out that the leader of a group could decide to leave a comp game and select the “Leave as group” option, which forced all the other members to leave without their consent or ability to stay while still giving them the leaver penalties. Some posters criticized me for bringing up this abusable (though apparently largely-unknown) mechanic, but it was fixed the next patch.
The other time was last year or 2023 with a bug that caused explosive bots to spawn in aggro’d on Rein’s agent course, which made beating pre-bug scores impossible. If you’re wondering why explosive bots now count as kills when they explode, that’s why.
Now if only they’d listen to my issues about wide unranked matchmaking…
