In a new post in the official forum, Scott Mercer from the Overwatch team has talked about some changes and improvements. New systems are intended to better recognize bad player behavior, while for example, flamers will be punished with silence minutes.
What is it about? Since the release of Overwatch in 2016, the Overwatch community has been labeled as toxic. There are always players who act offensively or even turn against their own team.
Blizzard has been fighting against toxic behavior in Overwatch for quite some time now and has announced further steps to improve the atmosphere in the team shooter.
Changes for a better gaming experience
To enforce the efforts for a better gaming experience, the Overwatch development team has formed a “Strike Team”. This is meant to coordinate and execute the changes together with the customer service teams, the community team, and various other departments of Blizzard.
Blizzard continues to rely on reporting: The main tool for the team to recognize bad behavior is the player reporting system. Recently, the report category “Bad Teamwork” was removed and “Griefing” was changed to “Gameplay Sabotage”. This is intended to simplify the reporting of bad behavior.
For some time now, players who report toxic users have been receiving thank-you messages in-game. These are meant to let them know that the reports they have submitted actually have a positive impact on the game. To further improve the interaction among players, an AI will also assist in the future.
Artificial intelligence to find flamers
“Machine Learning” systems check chats: To identify abusive chat and gameplay sabotage, “Machine Learning” systems will be used alongside player reports. This is an artificial intelligence that learns from examples and can recognize patterns. For instance, it can scan a chat history and identify insults.
Since everyone can have a bad day, warnings have been recently added to Overwatch to let players know that they are behaving unacceptably.
Players can avoid teammates: Recently, players can mark other users with whom they do not want to play in a team. An option to avoid other players has long been requested by Overwatch players.
Currently, it is only possible to avoid up to two players. However, this limit is expected to be raised over time, once the developers are confident that the new feature will not negatively affect matchmaking.
Insults lead to bans: Lastly, a change was made regarding how repeated flaming is punished. Previously, repeated insults were punished with a silence minute. This restricted communication with other players in-game, and any further rule violation led to a longer silence duration.
If someone continues to engage in abusive conversations, even after being warned, silenced, and suspended often enough, they will be permanently excluded from the game. Such players have proven that they do not want to be a positive member of the Overwatch community.
This is what players think: The changes have been largely received positively. In the Overwatch subreddit, players are worried that the AI intended to be used alongside player reports might not distinguish between sarcasm, jokes, and real insults.
What do you think about the upcoming changes? Is Blizzard on the right track, or is the company still not addressing toxic behavior strongly enough?
