He’s just one of several with the V.P. title. If people actually did homework and looked up Blizzard Entertainment structure, there are many V.P.s in the company. What he isn’t listed as is a Senior or Executive V.P.
He’s actually a member of Blizzard’s Team 4, which was formerly Project Titan, and now handling Overwatch, according to WoWpedia.
I’d fall into bronze.
I don’t honestly see what people find so unfair about this. If you not swapping and getting hard countered is ruining the experience for the other 5 players on your team, then you deserve your ban.
OP is making this out to be something it isn’t.
“They will ban you for playing off-meta” is not true, in this case or in any.
What is true, is that they will suspend you for playing something that is ineffective in the situation.
For example, if you play Sym into Widow/Pharah and contribute nothing towards your team’s success, refuse when asked to swap to something that isn’t fodder for the enemy team’s dps picks, and in general ignore your team, you will get reported and suspended.
What you’re all doing now is perpetuating and spreading lies about how the suspension system works. Yes, it is automated outside of cheating reports. No, you will not get “banned for playing off-meta”. You can play off-meta as much as you want, unless you’re not contributing and getting countered. Then you’re encouraged to, get this, swap to something effective. That doesn’t mean you have to swap to something meta like Hanzo, it just means you have to swap to something that isn’t fodder for the enemy team. Plenty of heroes fit this category.
OP is cherrypicking, so I will too.
“Refusing to change character to help the situation can be just as disruptive.”
Meaning that by one-tricking into counters and refusing to swap when asked is just as disruptive as griefing, and therefore counts as an offense. You violated terms by being disruptive and ruining the experience for the other 5 people who paid for their license to play the game. Get it through your thick skulls, people.
Except the the terms laid out by Blizzard explicitely said those things are not punishable behavior. Have you actually read what is and isn’t reportable?
The main problem is enforcement, not policy. Blizz says one thing, but the opposit is happening.
Not really. I will concede that they have been pretty vague about it, but they make it very clear that any form of disruptive behavior is punishable. One-tricking a hero was stated to not be punishable in itself, however playing a hero when you are being ineffective and refusing your team’s requests to swap has been stated to be disruptive. Disruptive equals punishable.
It isn’t that they say one thing and the opposite is happening, it’s that they are unclear about how one-tricking can lead to disruptive behavior. I know it’s a little complicated, and Blizzard needs to be more clear about how one-tricking can be disruptive to a team in a competitive game.
What they have never said, is that it’s perfectly okay to only play one hero even if you’re getting countered and contributing nothing towards your team’s success in a match.
No, they haven’t been vague. They have been very clear on policy.
One-trick is not punishable.
I do think it’s respectful to people to be willing to gel with the team composition, but you can’t ban somebody - it’s not a bannable offence - for just playing one hero, as long as you’re trying your best to win with that hero.
Let’s be clear here and not confuse policy:
One Tricking is not bannable and should not be reported (it even says so in the text)
Not-switching is not reportable
Off-meta is not sabotage and playing poorly is not sabotage.
You are completely missing the point of what I said.
I just stated one tricking in itself is not disruptive or punishable, but that it can lead to disruptive behavior, which is ignoring your teammates and playing your own game.
Being countered is not playing poorly or having a poor match, it is being countered and having your effectiveness reduced to almost nothing, thereby creating a poor experience for your teammates. Refusing the team’s requests to swap is disruptive for those other 5 players.
Do you understand what I am saying, and how it means Blizzard’s statements on the matter are technically true?
Edited because I made a mistake in my wording.
Thank you for that detailed report, it really did hit home with me.
I don’t normally play off-meta heroes, but I love to see my team mates play them, and I have seen so many amazing performances by players who have mastered the underdog heroes. I’m never asking for this game to get balanced, because I’ve never played a game that is balanced, and to do that with a game supporting multiple different abilities is an impossible dream we all wish could happen. But it won’t. What we do want is for the company to keep working at it, and I think they have done a great job so far.
Now I went along and agreed with everything you said, and It made me sad to hear such players as yourself could get banned for just playing the game the way you want to play, in a way that Blizzard allows us all to play, in a way that should make every team mate satisfied that you picked a hero and are doing your best with that hero to help your team. I myself have seen crazy comps work, so more and more I’m realizing a happy team is more important than a meta team. Of course a happy meta team would be awesome, but unless you have friends to play with, that just isn’t gurunteed to happen.
Now where I disagree with you, is that your quiting the game. Why? All of what you said just seems to crumble because your leaving. Now I’m not sure I believe any of this. If you want to make your point, stay with the game. Keep playing your off-meta hero despite the hate. We need more players like you that are willing to play the game the way they seem best, not what someone else is telling them. It gives the team more room to work with, more experience and especially with off-meta; more suprise for your enemy.
Long story short: I believe your story, but please don’t quite.
How do you read “gameplay sabotage is not unwillingness to switch heroes” and get “it totally is sabotage if you don’t switch heroes”?
Blizzard has also said it is not punishable to ignore their “requests” for you to change heroes.
All in all, the game lets you pick whoever you want. It’s not up to your teammates who you should play.
I think the game gets in a very dangerous state when we tell you who you’re allowed to play and not play with the game functioning like it does right now.
I mean, sometimes you’re gonna be countered, but we can’t leave it at other players’ discretion to decide what you should be doing.
This is why I say it’s an enforcement problem, not policy. They say you can do this thing, but then they punish you for doing the thing anyway.
Automated punishment can be kind of brushed off as limitation in programming, but GMs blatanly going against clearly stated policy is inexcusable.
Not often, always. They say it in email you get when punished, and it basically says … you can be unabanned only if you provide proof that it wasn’t you playing on your account at that time(like stolen, etc.).
Basically, it’s ok to say that if you got reported enough times, you’re doing something wrong … but they didn’t count on famous youtubers and streamers advising players to report every off-meta hero, every one-trick, every player who is not playing their main …
And even funnier, most of the bans are happening in the lower ranks, gold and silver where meta heroes are not as useful.
Never received a ban in over 40 hours of sombra. I guess switching when something isnt working is good teamwork
They can be technically true but, that doesn’t make it decent behavior on Blizzard’s part as it fails both sides of the debate and covers it up with their no talking about bans.
I like coming up with revamp ideas for things so I tend to read all sorts of different sites/reddits. The competitive subs tend to have a fair portion of the population that feel that nothing is being done about one tricks and you’ll find a fair portion in Sym areas for example that feel they are constantly banned for hero selection.
The approach is at best mildly denting one tricks population while generally increasing the dislike between the various factions of the game and also increasing the negative view towards Blizzard.
You probably haven’t played all 40 hours in one month(season) …
As long as you don’t play too much games, you’re fine, you rarely get reported by all 11 or all 5 players. But if you play a lot of comp, only 1 report every third game can get you punished. Because they’re not checking % but sum.
Oh yeah definitely… Was suspended 12 times the past 4 seasons for playing Symmetra. Rework is here now still getting false reported by these toxic scum.
This game has the worst community, the worst I have ever witnessed in any game, these people are a stain on the gaming community.
they’ve been focusing too much on stopping the toxicity and not whats causing it
Trolls 1
Blizzard and Riot games 0
Whoever trolled Blizzard and Riot into this corner deserves an award.
This company should be ashamed forever. Need to spread it over internet …
Well the reports never diminish so the length of time doesnt matter. 100 reports is a 100 reports. If you go over the threshold you get banned.
Too bad Blizzard can’t see PMs or I would be apt to believe you.
You sure about that? As far as I remember it’s number of reports on a daily & monthly basis. They might have higher number(then 100) for “all time”, otherwise everyone would be punished at least once, eventually.