Voice Chat: Ideas To Reduce Toxicity in OW2

General Discussion
1

1. An option to require matchmaking only with teammates that use voice in competitive

To me, it makes zero sense to play competitive with voice disabled. Yes, I know some people prefer silence, I’ve played like that many times (specially as support), and I don’t usually enjoy it, I say let silent or silence-enjoying people play on their own silent introvert teams. I want to win, and to me sometimes winning requires teamwork through voice communication.

My best matches are when everybody or most teammates are talking to each other. We greet, tease, cheer, make jokes, callouts, setup ambushes, argue tactics, ask for picks, etc. even when losing, we bid each other farewell and better luck next match, the camaraderie and coordination make the 10-25 minute social experience worth way more than the match itself.

I don’t care if that would make my own queue times longer, I want to enjoy a competitive match with people who also enjoy the social aspect of OW2.

“Why don’t you play with friends?”, because I enjoy the challenge of playing with different people in different matches. I just want these random people at least aligned in their voice preferences.

2. Being able to quickly know who’s in voice and who muted you in the scoreboard menu

I know there’s a voice menu, but this info should be readily accessible in the scoreboard (TAB) menu, including who blocked or muted you. There’s nothing more frustrating than not knowing whether a teammate can hear you, whether they can hear you and don’t understand you (they speak another language?), or if they’re actively ignoring you. Even the other way around, when I mute or block a teammate, sometimes they’re standing still and typing, not realizing I can’t see their communication.

3. In Latin America, there’s a barrier between Spanish and Portuguese

I imagine it must be even worse in Europe with two dozen freakin’ languages, but at least Europeans can always default to English, I suppose. The problem is that many Portuguese and Spanish speakers don’t speak English. Portuguese and Spanish are very similar languages, but players who speak these opposing languages just don’t get along, they hurl insults at each other the moment they realize a “boludo” (Spanish) or “macaco” (Portuguese) is on the other side. In the heat of battle, not much can be understood, and toxicity just increases exponentially.

If OW2 allowed players to list the languages they speak, and they showed up as flags on their banners, it would go a long way in making it easier to know whether a player can understand you or not, and which language to use when addressing the whole team or them specifically.

Better yet, allow players to play only with teammates who speak the same language. It might be too restrictive for the patchwork of Europe, but when there’s only two major languages in South America, breaking teams up by language preference would help bring down toxicity in voice chat a lot.

What are your thoughts on these? What measures would help bring voice chat toxicity down in OW2?

2

I think a lot of people could just do with remembering that they are talking to other people.

Better than someone? Good for you.
Worse than someone? It sucks but don’t lash out.
Matchmaking favored/didn’t favor you? Just gg and move on.

Can’t tell you how much abuse I’ve taken in chat XD it’s like people can’t be civil to anyone anymore.

4

I don’t prefer silence overall. I just prefer it to what everyone tends to do when voicechat is on which is yell over others, scream nonsense or repeat themselves constantly because they think their callout is the most important thing ever.

Generally that has been the VC experience and for that, I don’t join voice.

5

I sympathize with you not wanting abuse from voice chat. By the same reasoning, people who prefer voice should be allowed to require the same preference from other teammates.

Many times people inadvertently annoy others repeatedly trying to communicate with someone who isn’t responding or even listening. These issues diminish the overall voice chat experience.

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Some people like me have it disabled because otherwise you get falsely suspended.

Its happened to a lot of people sometimes it gets overturned sometimes it doesn’t since blizz doesn’t really care infact I think they want you to make a new account and spend more money on skins.

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I have more ranked time in voice chat than 99% of the playerbase and am more polite than 50% of it. Never a suspension

8

This is important. I know i’m utter trash on DPS compared to tanking, but like you said you don’t take it out on others. I just mute myself and take it out on myself because I know the mistakes are my own fault. It’s up to that player to learn from them.

Aside from this, people also forget that people who are listening on VC also may not be able to speak for physical/mental reasons. Or as already mentioned the language barrier. As long as people are listening and I can see they respond I’m cool. But at the back of my mind I’m also aware that there’s also other factors coming into play.

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Yea when someone tells me I’m bad at a role that I’m bad at, it’s like “oh you want me to be better? Well glad you said something.”

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1 and 2 would increase toxicity.

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Here’s a novel idea that I guarantee would work 100%.

Introduce PVE. PvP would pretty much die (I don’t believe for one moment that Comp 3.0 is going to make things any better).

This game is a crap shoot. I only grind progression and the only money I’ve paid is for the PvE missions.

You want money from me? It ain’t going to be from pathetic skins.

@OhReallyJared needs to shed the Kotick skin and allow Aaron to follow through on the initial vision for the game.

Otherwise, Overwatch just gets relegated to the pile of trash that is Games That Were Once Fun.

12

That’s … quite different though. I abstain because people abuse it. I don’t require others to adjust to me other than the fact I’m not in VC. I’m not requiring people to do anything. VC, regardless of personal preference, is not required to play well or win.

VC works well for YOU. Good to know and acknowledge. Others work off the ping system better, still others work off sound queues better and VC actually ruins this for them. So it’s good to know your strengths, but also you need to understand everyone works differently.

You want a “social experience”, many others don’t.

Should we allow these people to make their own queues? … depends… how big are populations? How much will this make the matchmaker create even bigger skill gaps to keep games reasonably quick? Information neither of us have.

I believe the less information my teammates have about me the more they can just play the game. I don’t want people building up all sorts of preconceived notions about how and what I play because of some settings or choices.

“I want to play with certain people” never works in online games unless you make your own teams. People have tried again and again to make cases for VC to be required and you know what I’d do if that was the case? Turn you all all-the-way down and never push the talk button. You cannot MAKE people socialize.

13

This take is such a participation trophy generation way of thinking it grosses me out. How about if you get your feelings hurt just mute the people and move on. “lashing out” is subjective. So subjective that people with weak emotional temperaments cant tell when someone’s actually being constructive with their criticism or not. No one grows with your philosophy because theyre too scared to take a chance on the whim of someone abusing the report function for their feelings being hurt.

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just tie toxicity to directly affect a players in game progression. that should keep people in line. what to rank up behave yourself and be nice to people.

15

Grow a thicker skin. When dealing with people in FPS/PVP game… yeah there is gonna be that trash talking. Thats never going to change. Sorry but the internet is not ur safe space where everyone is gonna be sunshine n rainbows.

Either learn to ignore it and not take it personally while reporting them

or

Dont get into VC or type anything period.

Changing it where they don’t progress or their rank gets downgraded isn’t going to keep someone in line or get them to stop… This is a F2P game. Even if they get ban they can just make another account.

So put ur big girl/boy panties on and stop being so sensitive

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People being in voice doesn’t matter to me. I’d say 29 out of 30 times, people in voice are friendly even if we’re losing. Join voice. We’re nice people. Or don’t. Who cares. It has no effect on anything.

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Being civil is a participation trophy? Nah, the real problem is that some of you believe there is a correlation between manners and participation trophies… That’s the issue. Nobody wants to listen to whatever you have to say because it is a waste of their time, obviously.

The proof that there is no growth with your “philosophy” is relatively self evident.

2 Likes
18

Oh lay off. It’s not wrong to wish people would stop being overgrown baby’s crying you aren’t playing the way they want.
“Sorry I’m trash blame the MM for matching me with you” kinda stuff.
I know it won’t happen i was just sharing my opinion. Not my fault people can’t be civil to each other and instead decide to type their lives away about how much someone sucks.

Not wanting preschool crap. I would just appreciate it if every text box wasn’t more toxic than the effin elephants foot.

All i ment was people are friggin people and toxicity is met with more and if we don’t learn to chill out soon we will be another LOL community.

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19

Thank you for getting it~♡