What is Wrong With This Community and Toxicity?

Competitive Discussion
1

I thought toxicity in Quickplay and Arcade is bad. Holy crap what is going on in comp? Pretty much every game I’ve been in out of over 30 so far, I’ve been insulted and bullied by both my team and the enemy team. Doesn’t matter if I respond or not they’ll keep going, but if I respond everyone in the lobby, literally everyone, will rally to insult me and tell me to kill myself and other absolutely vile things I’m not even allowed to say.

There was a match I was in where 3 people were telling lies about a random person in every match and saying they were being racist in VC or hacking and asking everyone in the match to report them. I was in 7 matches with them and they did it each time and people believed them and reported for them. I made the mistake of calling them out on what they were doing so they started doing it to me in every match they had with me, which was all 7 matches in a row until I quit and went to bed. They were also all very clearly smurfs in bronze. The “leader” of this group played Hanzo and maybe missed a total of 6 shots and I’m not even exaggerating with that.

I was just in a game now where I said “Is people killing themselves funny to you? Is it funny that people get suicidal because of the things you say?” to which 4 people replied “Yes and you should kill yourself. I’ll even help you do it. You deserve to die.”
What is happening? Why is this so bad? People say LoL is more toxic than Overwatch but I think that’s dead wrong now, this is absolutely out of control and nobody is stopping these people because no one ever reports them because if you are bothered by it you’re a “word for female body part” and “should never play video games ever again because that’s just how it is”.
Yeah yeah I know block and turn off chat and all that but when I do that people know I’ve done it because I’m not responding so will resort to other ways of being toxic like spraying my dead body, tbagging, hard targeting me over everyone else in the entire game, spamming voicelines etc.

It’s gotten to the point that these people are telling others to hate me and be toxic to me in every match they join. I know this because I joined a skirmish to see them telling people lies about me. I’m unable to escape because these toxic trolls are spreading word about me to the community I guess that I’m an easy target and I now can’t play this game in any mode without encountering people that just instantly start attacking me the moment they see me.

This is even carrying over to these forums with a post that was deleted getting reported and me being punished for it. I don’t know why you can report a deleted post but they had all their friends report it and it even popped up in my email as “(post deleted by author)” which means it was reported after it was deleted. I sent a support ticket in because that makes no sense and only got a response literally the exact second the punishment ended and got a copy paste response saying it was deserved. People are now reporting every single post I make and many are getting deleted and I’m continuing to be muted and punished.

Why does no one report these people? Why are people so apologetic and accepting of this behavior? Why does no one care about it? Why are these people given special treatment and the people that are upset by it are the ones that get punished? Why don’t teammates ever defend people who are being bullied and instead join in? What is this supposed to accomplish? Teammates joining in and bullying someone makes your TEAMMATE play worse from tilt and now you will probably lose the game. Tilting the enemy doesn’t even make sense strategically because they will probably be placed in your team after that match and because they are still tilted from last match you will lose the game.

I very very very rarely ever see that little message pop up thanking for reporting when I report people like this because Blizzard’s system is 100% automatic. I’m the only one that ever reports these kinds of people in matches. It’s just me because for some reason no one else cares and even teammates think it’s funny that another teammate is being bullied and getting depressed. I have never seen a more sadistic group of people in my entire life, and I have to say they got what they wanted, I have never been more depressed in my entire life than I am right now after an entire lobby rallied against me to bully me and tell me to commit suicide and that I deserve to die.

Note: all of this is over text
Update: Just logged on today to find that the people that told me to kill myself had no action taken against their account as I did not get a popup.
Note 2: If you’re here to insult me and call me a crybaby or a wuss or any other number of things don’t even bother because from this point onward I will be blocking those users on sight and no longer responding because it’s not worth it.
Note 3: If you’re just here to leave a comment about how tbagging isn’t toxic just don’t comment at all, tbagging is a very small part of what I have listed. Stop hyperfocusing on ONE aspect to say that my entire post is invalid because tbagging isn’t toxic to you.

7 Likes
2

I’m surprised players still waste time reporting or joining chat/comms in the first place. Have you tried playing with radio silence?

1 Like
3

Yeah people can’t be bothered to join voice but somehow 300+ people have united to flame this guy. Real funny story.

3 Likes
4

Idk where you got that number from. Usually 1 or 2 people will insult me no matter what in a match, just as they’ll insult other people. If I say anything against them the whole lobby typically joins in to insult me including my own team.

3 Likes
5

Not only did you use the word literally, which people commonly just use so I would dismiss it, you wen’t through the effort of emphasizing everyone twice. Don’t try to tell anyone now it’s only one or two people per lobby.
11x30=330
300+
Crazy math!! Sorry bud, back to the drawing board. Maybe next time you can come up with something more believable.

3 Likes
6

Everyone in the lobby gangs up on me if I say anything to the trolls. If I “fight back” the whole lobby except perhaps 1 person will gang up on me to call me a crybaby and insult me alongside the people that started. I don’t always say anything to the trolls. Don’t know why you’re being a troll right now and trying to be all mathematician on me.
You cherry picked parts of my sentence to make it fit your weird hyper focus rant against me. Don’t know how you missed “>>but if I respond<< everyone in the lobby”

2 Likes
7

Just play with friends or mute/ squelch chat. Tbh it’s so many ways to ignore messages I don’t see why the forums are needed. Wouldn’t even waste my energy on keyboard warriors, they’re on the game like you not doing nothing but playing overwatch, all in the same position

1 Like
8

hmm…this did not happen

3 Likes
9

You have multiple options to completely ignore your team mates like staying away from voice chat and deactivating regular chat.

1 Like
10

If people tell you to go kill yourself, give them what they asked for. Start jumping off the map. :joy:

4 Likes
11

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to execute someone in their own home and set it on fire, this is what it looks like.

2 Likes
12

The community is toxic because our ranked competition is algorithmically handicapped (i.e., a total farce).

3 Likes
13

hmmm, this did not happen either.

1 Like
14

So with your limited thinking, you are implying that EVERYTHING that has competition is “rigged”, because lots of people are toxic, so everything you do, football games, chess, and etc is rigged =]]]

2 Likes
15

players can get banned or silenced but hop on alt account and keep being toxic. When the account is banned, they just buy a new one and smurf. Blizz knows but they won’t stop them since it makes the company money.

1 Like
16

It absolutely did happen. I don’t know why it’s so hard to believe this when everyone says comp is incredibly toxic. I just underestimated how toxic it truly is. I thought I’d just stay out of VC because of how toxic I already know that is, and still keep chat visible so someone can ask me to switch or say really important stuff if they need to, but I know now it’s never used for anything other than to flame people.
And to people saying “you can mute, block etc”. I know. I’ve tried this. The thing is they tell other people (their friends) who then start going after me in other matches. If I turn off chat they know I’ve done so because I don’t respond so start using other methods that I listed. Yes they aren’t as bad but they’re still methods to troll that work on people, me included.

If people tell you to go kill yourself, give them what they asked for. Start jumping off the map. :joy:

That’d get you reported for gameplay sabotage by everyone in the match.

1 Like
17

garbage matchmaking is the main driver behind toxicity. Instead of getting 6 people of the same skill they mix in lower tiers to even up the matches and people get mad. Blizzard is so awful.

6 Likes
18

nah, i think the main reason for toxicity in online games is just that people in general are butts.

(and given the opportunity for anonymity just enhances that)

Overwatch is actually pretty mild compared to other games ive played.
Not excusing it, its just not as bad here as it is elsewhere

4 Likes
19

Absolutely not. Online games like Overwatch are specially toxic because of algorithmic handicapping.

20

I know the scenario described by the OP seems really extreme, but I don’t see anything wrong at all with giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Seriously. For real. What actual harm would come from that? There’s no naming and shaming or anything sinister here. It’s literally just a vent post about a miserable experience.

Now think about how much psychological harm could actually be inflicted on someone who’s actually going through a horrible experience, when people come in here and act like everything they’re going through is a lie, like they’re somehow the one in the wrong. Especially when they’re not in a good place emotionally to begin with.

Please just dial back the suspicion and give the OP a chance. You just never know.

And now, to actually address you, OP. I actually sympathize with the part about feeling like your reports aren’t working. Towards the end of my time having chats enabled, I felt like mine weren’t having an effect, either. I don’t remember if I ever even got a notification after reporting the bullies who actually finally inspired me to turn off the chats overall. Nowadays, I’m just getting the feeling that a lot of players have gotten jaded and decided to stop bothering with reports for whatever reason, which really hurts the community as a whole. That being said, I do still hear about cases of reports working, so there is at least a possibility of bullies being punished.

By the way, speaking of reports, it is possible for them to take a while to have an effect. Hopefully that’s all that’s going on in your case, and you’ll end up seeing the message pop up Soon™

And I’m sorry about saying it again, because you’re probably tired of seeing it, but I have to advise you again to turn off all the chats, no matter the game mode. Even though there are other ways that people can try to annoy you without the chat, it’s better than the abusive vileness that they can spew at you in chat. It also removes the temptation to say anything back to them, which unfortunately often just ends up getting you in trouble too.

And one more thought; when the enemy starts literally targeting you gameplay-wise, maybe it’s because they think you’re doing well? Or alternatively, you’re playing a valuable role like support (or tank). Sometimes when I’m playing damage, I can’t help feeling like I’m being ganged up on and targeted, too, but generally when that happens, it’s during a match where I feel like I’ve been posing some sort of threat to the enemy team. As for support (and tank), I don’t really think about it because I know I’m kind of a higher-priority target due to role reasons

Just in case you were about to try and tell me that your gameplay is horrible or something, I think you’re just too hard on yourself. You might be performing better than you realize

5 Likes