Toxicity is worse than ever

General Discussion
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Look, I know a lot of these threads exist, but I’m here to chime in because the awareness should never stop.

Just got out of a QP game in which a 4 stack started telling me to kill myself after I questioned why no one was communicating. They asked how old I was (23 y/o) and said that I was a quote “fing loser” because I’m a grown man playing OW casually. I naturally defended myself, and then they turn the entire thing around on me and try to get people on the other team to report me.

I know I’m just a minority, but I struggle with depression every day and don’t need TEAMMATES telling me to kill myself. Taking a long hiatus from this toxic game.

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23 is a grown man now? Oh geez I am a geezer, playing at 29.

There will always be immature players looking to pick on others, or get a reaction. I know it’s too easy for me to say “block, report, move on”, as I am outside of the situation. However, I will say that you just need to find a handful of players who play about at your level and try to stick with them when you play. Don’t let a couple bad apples spoil the bunch, you know?

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And this was what endorsements were supposed to…heh, limit. My apologies that you’re still getting hit with the toxic folk, and I wish you well in your real life struggle. Hopefully you will find peace, soon.

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I don’t think it’s really the games fault. I deal with depression and I’ve had times where I got upset because someone was toxic but it happens. In almost every online game, it happens. I’ve went from playing LoL, CSGO, Dota2, countless of MMoRPGs, and now Overwatch. The only thing you can do is report and move on. With the new LFG, I usually find good teammates that are nice and friendly so that might help.

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The devs could also implement a filter that pairs solo que players with other solo que players

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Here’s some of the evidence from the post “Groups and Matchmaking”

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Well you’re not the only one experiencing it. Ever since the new update rolled out, there were a lot of positive vibes from people, but there were also a lot of toxicity. Perhaps im just unlucky, but for the past few days in the games i had i always quit the game feeling down from all this toxicity. Just report, block, mute and hope and pray others catch them and do the same. Try not to let them spoil your games, at the end of the day what matters is that you did nothing wrong, and the people that were mean to you will be hit with a truck load of karma. Well at least i hope so, toxic people are really disgusting, i just don’t understand why people feel the need to open their mouths and say sh*t to other people.

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I’m 24 though o.o also we’re the generation that started online gaming they should shut it :sweat_smile:

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in my game everyone is so positive it makes me sick.

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Simply put, they’re insecure and they do it to pump up their fragile egos. What ‘better’ way than to put down people around them, rather than use the harder “comradery” approach, instead? It is a sad thing, to be honest.

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For me there’s a point where being nice crosses into being creepy. People are being creepy recently… more so than before I mean.

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  1. it appears the OP is solo queuing since he got queued with a 4 stack.
  2. endorsements do work. If you don’t believe me, queue with a 6 stack of nothing but rank 2 and higher endorsements and tell me it wasn’t better.
  3. endorsements are new so they haven’t had time to cement.

As to the OP, I can prove statistically that toxicity has neither increased nor decreased in competitive, though I have no data on toxicity in QP. I’ve been tracking my comp stats since the second half of season 10 and toxicity levels have remained stable at 15% +/- 3% between seasons. The best response to toxicity is to block them and never see them again. Also, using LFG (and not looking at it from the outside) will show you a better picture. While toxicity levels in terms of how many matches have a toxic player have not changed, joining a group from LFG decreases the number of toxic players you’ll encounter (you’ll still encounter 1 toxic player in 12-18% of matches, but again just block them and they’ll likely be kicked at the end of the match).

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Oh did you… did you now? Y’all think gaming started back in the 90’s? Interesting. ;]

OP: While your experience sucks, toxicity is actually LESS prevalent than it used to be. The TYPE of toxicity still exists but as a whole it’s getting less and less common to encounter someone who’s willing to risk losing their OW access just to jab someone. I’d say try out the LFG tool a little. I’ve heard it’s mighty useful to find like minded players.

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You see, that’s where I agree, it’s not a healthy thing to promote this ‘fake’ positivity, and it’s really more detrimental to this game than trying to promote another, more better idea of politeness. I’d rather deal with ‘polite’ than people ‘kissing up’ for fake game points.

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I don’t think it’s going to stay this way. The fake politeness will go away (not that i’ve seen any fake politeness myself) as the people who are being fake polite will have all their toxicity build up until it explodes. They’ll have to let it out and when they do they’ll get banned/suspended/silenced and lose their endorsements and be stuck at rank 1 forevermore.

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Not sure many played online games in the 80’s :thinking: and i’m well aware games existed before the 90’s

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LFG works pretty nicely, yes…

This is about the time when people are getting impatient with the endorsement system, and start corrupting it for their own ends.

Add onto that the idea that hey, we’re giving people plus points for tossing out endorsements, no matter whether or not they’re truly deserving…and well, those endorsement levels won’t matter at all down the road, because you’re still letting the toxic people through the gateway to the upper levels. So much for positivity!

I’d say to start correcting for that problem though is to drop the idea of giving any sort of XP for endorsements, and see where it goes from here. Let the good Samaritans start pushing the corruption out of it.

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Dont care what people think. It doesnt matter. It only matter what you think.

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But we did play online games in the 80’s and late 70’s. We needed BBS and screechy modems that monopolized the phone line, but they existed.
Online gaming is far older than many realize.

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You beat me to replying to this comment. Was going to make some quip about have having cartridges older than 24, but then remembered the first games I owned were on cassette tape, which is slightly depressing realising exactly how long I’ve been gaming. :slight_smile:

To the OP: find friends to group with. It is necessary to enjoy this game long term. Use the LFG. Join an online guild. Solo queue is th absolutely worse way to play this game outside of the arcade.