Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch has been doing famously well since launching in May 2016 but it’s suffered from a number of issues in recent months. Much of it can be blamed on the in-game reporting system – despite accounts of abuse, spam and inactivity, many players have reported having to deal with the same players. Competitive Play is fairly bad because of this with griefers, throwers, AFKers and so on being a major issue and seemingly nothing being done.
The developer has recognized this and in response, community manager Lylirra outlined some changes that were effective immediately in the game. “We believe that our in-game reporting and player penalty system is one of our most important features, and it’s something we want to invest in significantly over the next year.
“To this end, effective immediately, we will be issuing increased penalties to players in response to verified reports of bad behavior. In Overwatch, that means anything from abusive chat, harassment, in-game spam, match inactivity (being intentionally AFK), and griefing. If you see someone engaging in any of these types of behaviors, report them. Players in violation will be silenced, suspended, or even banned from the game as a result.”
Such offenses will also stack so if you’ve been banned for a day and repeat the same behaviour, then punishments will only increase from that point. Many players were worried about choosing off-meta picks and thus being reported en masse by their teammates.
The official Overwatch Twitter noted that with regards to the system being abused in this way, it would be looking at, “‘Verified reports of bad behavior’. Keyword: Verified.” Which seems to indicate that Blizzard will be doing some investigation along with the actual reports rather than blindly following them.
In other news, Overwatch’s next hero Doomfist will be arriving on July 27th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.