The reporting system of Overwatch is frustrating many players. And Jeff Kaplan admits: There is a lot of room for improvement.
A few days ago, most players of Overwatch had a great time when the Game Director Jeff Kaplan exposed a particularly brazen player. This player claimed to have been banned unjustly, to which Kaplan then listed exactly how many offenses he had committed. The account had received more than 2000 reports.
However, the amusement did not last particularly long. It also revealed some glaring errors in the reporting system. How can it be that a player with 2247 reported complaints can still play? Why isn’t someone who has been placed under a silence penalty for 384 days completely banned from playing?
No one fears a report
Some players in the forum have also noticed this and raised a few criticisms about the reporting system.
- No one fears the reporting system. Anyone who has been reported over 2000 times and receives a third ban of only one week has no respect for the system.
- If “someone like that”, who is supposedly one of the worst accounts, only receives such a lenient penalty, then that means in return that all others receive even lesser penalties or none at all.
Jeff Kaplan took the time again to address this in the forum – and agreed with the critics.
The current system is anything but perfect, and we are working hard to improve it. In the future, penalties will be much harsher, and in the coming days, you can expect a “Developer Update” video that goes into detail about the changes.
The reporting system is an important feature
The reporting system is one of the most important features in the long term to maintain fun for a large part of the community. Therefore, there are short-, medium-, and long-term plans to improve the system.
- Short-term: Penalties will be increased, and game bans will be imposed more frequently. Repeat offenders can expect harsher penalties. Additionally, players will be notified via email when a reported player has been sanctioned.
- Medium-term: Anyone banned in multiple seasons will be permanently banned from ranked play and eventually from quick match as well. Moreover, any form of skill rating manipulation (such as boosting or intentional abandoning) will be penalized more severely. New systems will also be introduced to recognize such behavior (automatically).
- Long-term: Players will be notified in-game when a reported player has been sanctioned. We want to create systems that “reward positive players”. The developers are bothered that they have to spend so much time keeping a disruptive minority in check instead of rewarding the positive majority.
In the end, toxic players are not just a problem for the developers but for the entire community. This can only be managed through collaboration. So he concludes with the sentence:
“We are working hard to make changes. I hope you are too.”
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