What’s the deal with private profiles?

My only issue with it is it’s private by default. People coming back to the game have a private profile and they don’t even know it. I don’t understand that decision.

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Overbuff requires you to have a public profile to check your stats, so it’s stats didn’t really change much at all. And everything the devs have said is going on in the game is still reflected in Overbuff.

How am I suppose to know what my team can and cannot play?

The only decent argument I’ve heard against them is that it can be hard to make a team comp, but in my experience this isn’t a big enough issue to warrant removing private profiles.

I really enjoy private profiles though. If I’m having a rough day and don’t want to listen to a verbal assault for picking a hero other than my most played, it’s super nice to just change it to private.

Two reasons.

Most users are casual and would never know they could protect themselves from toxicity if Blizzard didn’t do it for them.

If they were not default, people would assume that the reason its private is the person has something to hide. So for example, someone who played a lot of Symmetra would get accused of being a one trick because their profile was private.

If the profile is private by default, you don’t know why it’s private so you can’t make assumptions about the person. And anyone who has it private, which comes with the risks of opening yourself up to toxicity, is consenting to those risks because they want the benefits of an open profile.

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“Can anyone play Lucio?”
“Can anyone swap to Widow and get that Pharah?”

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and people like you are why it’s there.

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I just feel like it’s no one’s business what I play. And the whole “it sucks because we need to organize our team better” as if it makes a difference. In all my time in Overwatch I’ve seen that happen maybe twice.

But you know what I’ve actually seen happen? People belittling others based on what they play, their winrate or rank. I’ve seen way too many people hate on Mercy mains who try to play something else. Or people that are 1 rank or 2 higher than that person and harassing them as if their opinion is invalid because of their SR.

So I’m glad they added this option. Maybe they can add a preferred role or hero but I doubt it would do much good.

If it makes zero sense allow me to explain:
Someone who would use a mechanic only put in place to prevent others from using certain information as toxic fuel as a reason to call people names? Probably one of those people who were using that information for insulting others.

Got it now or should I use simpler language?

But your team never has mics and not in team chat so…

Build around the character they actually picked?

Eh. People are wrong on both sides. People are using it to hide troll accounts and to judge others while being safe for judgement, and others are using it to assume the worst in, and to harass others.

2 sets of bad apples spoiling 2 bunches.

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essentially people are upset they lost their favorite tool to bash/dictate others so they keep fighting in order to try and get it back.

I don’t exactly hate them, but when it hides smurfs, then it irks me.

As for me, I get it public simply cause I don’t care, I’m a Junkrat main with over 100 hours on him. Doesn’t mean I haven’t put a massive amount of time into other characters.

LOL, sure. Ive been playing this game for the last 18 months and have never come across one hacker. Not one. Yes, ive come across people who were really good that others thought were hacking, but when youve been playing FPS games since Marathon,Doom and Hexen … you can spot a hacker pretty easily.

Then seeing what else they can play is pointless because you won’t be able to ask them to play something else regardless.

“people use it as a way to be a douche” Then they would just expose themselves sooner and get reported faster and more easily…? Doesn’t make sense for profiles to be private still. Trying to protect people from themselves does not work.

You’ve been lucky, then, or maybe you’re not aware of the new hacks, like triggerbot.

I’d like to know my WR% though.

People would rather assume what their teammates want to do instead of simply communicating with them.

People will say “Oh, I just want to make sure you’re on a hero you’re comfortable with!” but they never take into account how annoying it can be to fill one hero for a few placements, then be stuck with them for the rest of the season because everyone assumes you one trick that specific hero, and lock in all of their heroes around that assumption.

Like, sure, they’re my most played hero for a reason, but maybe I want to play something else now and then without getting accused of throwing?