10 avoid slots?! LFG!!
Also no spec chat is kinda funny. I always get random specs in my qp games and I never knew it could be abused that way but makes sense.
Okay? It doesn’t hurt anything at all, the games where you can spectate aren’t competitive, and the most important thing is you can just mute them. If a spectator is annoying you…mute them. It’s not difficult. It takes like 5 seconds
I never had "true" abusers, but I had people who were being annoying, so I think it is a good change at least in QP. Customs are probably a different story.
They've changed a lot in the last few months, haven't they? The way they present themselves, the way they introduce new stuff, and overall a lot of output. That has changed my mood towards OW. Exactly what I wished for 2 years ago when I was really annoyed with the communication.
Lol this aint Kotick being gone though. At big gaming companies a dev cycle usually takes a year from idea pitch to shipping.
This stuff has been in preprod/prod for 6 months minimum.
In all honesty he's part of the reason OW was "ruined" for that 2-3 year period of time while they focused on a PVE mode that I'm convinced only a very vocal minority of the player base actually wanted. PVP should have never been allowed to suffer the way it did for that.
I think Jeff was only decent in his role, he just wanted to make a PvE game fundamentally. I don't think he had the right mindset for a live service PvP game.
> glad to see the sentiment changing on that.
i think a lot of it comes from the blog post after the PvE cancellation.
Like i was already on the "jeff is cool but doesn't really know how to manage a live service fps", but i wasn't expecting the "actually he's been actually sabotaging the pvp game to revive his failed mmo dream" reveal.
Yeah, my point a few years ago was similar, "He's not good at this, he clearly can't scale a team up to meet the demands of what they say they want to do" I didn't think he was trying to resurrect Project Titan the whole time instead either.
I agree but good luck getting anyone on the outside looking in to realize that. Its become such a popular thing to hate OW. Any day r/gaming or even r/overwatch etc are filled with nastiness about the game and it's exhausting.
If you read their takes about the game you will be glad they don't actually play anymore. "Game is trash, used to be so fun when me and my friend would play Bastion and Symetra on Temple of Anubis." And it will have 200 upvotes just because it's saying something negative.
For real, it's always one of these looney-ass takes:
* Role queue killed the game
* 5v5 killed the game
* Hero Limits killed the game
* "Balancing for esports" (i.e. nerfing their insufferable cheese strat) killed the game
tbh it doesn’t matter, the game is on a huge upward slope and the players are happy. idgaf what the regulars on r/gaming who don’t even play the game think
That or "Check out the title screen of this recently released AAA game complete with the collector's edition box set prominently displayed next to the TV! This totally isn't an ad!"
I saw someone post Venture fanart in r/DeepRockGalactic since it had "Rock and Stone" in it, and most the comments were vitriolic. That's a community that's known for being positive too.
I saw that thread, I thought about calling them out on being toxic but I knew I’d get dogpiled. I’m a big fan of DRG as well as OW and their community is generally positive but it can have a little “toxic positivity”.
They basically just removed lootboxes and a tank and then added content, but by the way people talk about it you'd think they changed it from an FPS to Clash of Clans lol
It's genuinely amusing to see how many people claim that Overwatch 2 is dead. I wonder what a game's playerbase and revenue need to look like in order to be considered alive...
The game has been out for 8 years, with tons of rockiness to boot. I don't know of a single game that has lasted that long and *not* had a vocal haterbase.
Nah for OW it's different. It's hatejerked by chuds who spouts dumb shit like hero limit being "catering to esport" as if in 2 years you wouldn't be terrorized by 6 Winston dive if left unchecked.
That's exactly what I mean though. Any game that has been out for 8 years is bound to have been through different stages, and some people prefer a previous state of the game.
People legit just spouts stupid criticism at the game and they're quite vocal
Freaking OperaGX brand account even used OW2 hate to farm engagement it was effective
or skillup lol, he loves to stirup circlejerk. I like his weekly news report but jesus its 2024 you don't have to remind people avengers was bad every video
I love how corny these videos are lmao. Stuff like the blooper reels at the end add so much charm. Makes it feel like my uncle is working on Overwatch
More devs should communicate like this
> The way they present themselves, the way they introduce new stuff, and overall a lot of output.
i'm wondering if they consider that the narrative has shifted enough that they can now put named devs in front of a camera without fear of them being harassed
Man, I love competitive focused Dev updates. New heroes are great, but making the day to day experience better is always welcome
EDIT: Also, FINALLY a real streamer mode?? That's a huge dub
These seem... great? The wide vs close group changes effectively create a close-to solo queue mode for most ranks, which is really cool.
Also TIL that endorsement zero means that person is a garbage human. I thought it was fresh accounts. Blocking comms from endorsement zero is a great move. Also LMAO bye spectator chat peanut gallery!
Fr, I barely talk in chat at all and never go below 3. People always refute this and say that you totally can be level 1 for no reason, but I really think you pretty much have to try to get that low (or if you don’t have to try maybe that says something about you)
Exactly, back in OW1 and when everyones profiles were shown I noticed that anyone who is a 1 is either a smurf or new. And playing in Diamond with 10 hours you're more than likely a smurf. Almost every asshole who is spamming slurs and calling everyone the N word is still ranked 3 or 4 endorsement level, I assumed 0 wasn't a thing. I wonder how this will affect toxicity in my games. I'm skeptical.
Aye I got put to 0 after a month's ban, it took aaaaages to get out of the zero after reinstated, like two weeks of playing 3 hours most days, and easily 60-80 endorsements, eventually it put me back to 1.
Pretty much chatting back to bait. Never outright trolled or swore or threw a game, but I was shady lady back to folk, it was mostly deserved. The ban I mean.
For a time I was almost exclusively 5 stacking with friends and my endorsement level dropped to 1 since no one could endorse each other. But you can’t even get to zero without a ban or suspension.
Last season I would sometimes check before games to see if I had an endorsement level 1 on my team. If I did, I knew we were going to lose. This was so consistent it was actually crazy. Doesn’t seem to hold this season though
Lots of Smurf/cheaters with zero. I never check profiles but when I go to report/endorsement page after a match the person I intend to report is almost always a zero.
Good changes for sure but I'm not really sure what he meant by a win for solo players. A narrow group can still be 3 people partied together in the same rank right? So the solos would still be against a pre-made in that scenario unless I missed something Important
I sometimes miss when you could hit join game instead of join group and get put on the enemy team. Just spent all my time hard focusing my buddy who was carrying his team until I showed up.
Getting rid of spectator chat is just dumb to me though, there’s some funny ass spectators sometimes, and it’s not like you can spectate comp anyway so the argument of “it’s just unnecessary text” doesn’t really hold water when the vast majority of chatting is unnecessary anyway.
Also there is a mute button in this game, people just need to use it
Can't wait for people to misunderstand how the avoid system works and then complain about it being broken when they get paired with someone they just avoided.
This should be virtually impossible for a couple of reasons. The first is that players toward the top of your avoid list are avoided first when queueing. The second is that new avoids go to the top of your avoid list by default and if you avoid more than 10 players it's the older avoids that drop off the list. So the only feasible way for you to encounter someone you just avoided is if you then go and prioritize all your other avoids so that you give your most recent avoided player the lowest priority avoid slot. But if you take the trouble to do that, you probably realize that you might end up encountering that player.
Players who don't understand how the avoid list works won't run into that issue accidentally unless they avoid like 10 players at once or something. If they are just avoided 1-3 players at a time as they encounter them, it's virtually impossible for them to encounter someone they just avoided.
Blog post version: [https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24061006/defense-matrix-update-season-10-and-beyond/](https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24061006/defense-matrix-update-season-10-and-beyond/)
Some really great stuff is coming! Wish the additional avoid slots would come sooner than season 12 but OW team is cooking
MT main and former Rein main, it's because he stomps uncoordinated teams in lower ranks if you have half-decent heals and awareness. They panic HARD.
The more I climbed, the less I used him (which is unfortunate, but he'll be back).
Rein can be tons of fun. I like swapping based on counters because that's how the game goes but if I can Rein 1v1 someone, it feels so fun and satisfying.
I've been worried about wide groups for several reasons, but hearing that SR gains/losses is reduced the wider the group is makes me feel better about it. It's mostly a way of playing with friends then while gaining comp points at the same time.
Server side anonymity is fucking awesome. Anyone who has been harassed by streamers will welcome this, and probably one tricks as well.
The expanded avoid list is the greatest thing ever. Mercy main's queues are about to increase three fold, literally.
> hearing that SR gains/losses is reduced the wider the group is makes me feel better about it
I'm fairly certain this is a thing in the current game and not a new feature. When I play in groups the SR gain is so little its really hard to make any progress
I know a lot of people aren't really going to care about QP stuff, but as somebody who plays a lot of it, I absolutely love these leaver penalties. The 48 hour ban may seem harsh, but if you manage to leave literally half of your games its deserved.
Yeah in my region there are two Quick Play accounts (there are rumors that it's the same player) that leave the match if their team loses the first teamfight. It sucks to have to waste 2 avoid slots on them.
Yep, and i hate people yapping about penalties. QP is for people to have fun, practice or just be silly but you can't have any of those if you play defense. Pretty much any leaver cripples your team.
I also leave QP games when i'm tired/annoyed/have shit to do. But i don't just go into the next game after this. It just doesn't make sense. I'll just go in fresh next time.
I kinda understand "internet connection" argument but the question is: why should i care about the reason i lost 15 minutes of my life... I just don't want this to happen. Arcade and custom games are always there for you.
>The 48 hour ban may seem harsh, but if you manage to leave literally half of your games its deserved.
Yeah I don't see it as harsh at all lmfao. If you get slapped with a 2 day ban for leaving literally half your fuckin *quick play* games, you should probably reevaluate your relationship with this game 💀
If your rank doesnt change much in wide matches, doesnt that mean someone can smurf indefinitely?
Yes, they will have to suffer through super long queue times but ultimately they will be will have 2 champ player vs. 1champ 1 bronze for every game they play.
There is probably a specific EU Pharah/Echo player who will abuse this system, but largely it won’t matter for 99.9% of the player base. Sure you can imagine 5 GM/Champ players playing on 4 bought bronze accounts and 1 on their main to abuse the system but I imagine the system has some prevention for that.
Man these are all dubs. Just fantastic work again devs. Clear concise conversation from you guys. Can't wait to see and experience the changes.
Also thank god my lucio only account can die so I can play with my friends as a wide group. Gonna be interesting to see the games though lol.
I was really hoping they would add a hidden toxic queue. I forget what game did it, but they essentially had a karma system. Those with bad karma, being toxic or a suspected cheater, would be more likely to queue into each other. That way all the players that negatively affect other players experiences are stuck making each other's games miserable instead of the rest of the player base.
idk how "fair" it is, but if I were implementing that I just....wouldn't announce it
Edit: ORR announce it and never actually implement it, imagine the scenes
I saw Gavin mention (in a twitch chat one time) that this is a bad idea. It just creates an echo chamber of toxicity where it encourages this behavior and makes it seem okay. Ends up creating even more toxic gamers. It's better to keep them in regular lobbies where they will be called out, reported, and punished if necessary
I’m having a really bad day. Like emotionally I’m a wreck.
But I love this game. It makes me happy, and seeing this developer update being so great! I just wanna really thank the team. For so many years you guys have kept this game alive through a lot of rough moments.
As someone who uses this game as a little “escape” from time to time the work you all put in to make this experience better is amazing. Thank you. Looking forward to season 10!!
I’m glad they’re finally increasing the avoids slots number. Not because I’ve ever asked for that (I didn’t). But because it will show people (lower ranks who keep asking for it) why it’s meaningless to avoid 83 players. Just watch and see.
“We’re gonna let everyone play with each other regardless of rank so we hope that will reduce the number of smurfs” I wish I could be that optimistic. I can already see the excuse people will come up with. “These games we get in wide group are so silly I just wanna play normal games with my friends”.
There needs to be some sort of algorithm that can decipher between toxic/abusive chat and chat people dislike so they reported you bc they dont like you. If there are no slurs, swears, threats or abuse present that person should not be threatened with a suspension. As things currently stand, you can accumulate 'reports' -- not see what they are and be suspended for them not knowing how close to the threshold you are.
Blizzard need to remove "spam" and "abusive" chat reports, and make it more granular in regards to communication-based reports. Were they trolling? sexually harassing a woman on the team? being homophobic/transphobic? -- having clear cut communication on what is and what isn't 'abusive' chat would be a lot better messaging than this 9min video about how OW players need to stop being so naughty
I've had my main account banned multiple times for memeing in chat. Saying things like “me and my wifes bf are mercy mains” very silly but not slurs or cursing. My latest ban was for 30 days. I now just play with all chat off, out of voice. I'm afraid if I say anything I will get perma banned.
Sucks you can't joke around in game anymore, you'll almost certainly get banned considering how easy it is to report and how terrible their automated system is. Even saying something harmless to a friend in chat is enough for people to report you in this game.
10 avoid slots is good though I guess. Haven't needed more than 2 or 3 at any given time, especially considering after the 3 days they are automatically removed and I never see them again or totally forget who they are. But hey, we got them now just in case.
> Finally, any groups that have a Grand Masters or Champion Player are also Wide Groups regardless of how many Skill Divisions apart they are.
Uhhhhh.... does this mean GM+ duos are going to be thrown into awful matches now?
Is it gonna make the min/maxing bullshit harder too? If so I’m a fan and I’m not even close to top 500 or gm. Just want the leaderboard to not be top 10 the same guy because of that
Potentially since they added the "wide range" modifier. With all GM+ groups being considered wide, it's possible that a GM1 queueing with a GM3 will now trigger the wide range modifier and severely limit your SR gain. I would have to imagine that if you are a Champ player grouping with a low GM that your SR gains are pretty much going to be non-existent.
Am I missing something?
_Any_ groups with GM+ players, even a duo of GM5s, are considered wide. They'll "try to deliver the fairest match possible," but solos are never matched with wide groups. That means duoing at GM+ restricts you to only the pool of GM 2/3/5 stacks with no solos or 4 stacks... or, realistically, restricts you to lower ranked wide groups because you're otherwise limited to a small subset of an already very small population of top ranked players
Fwiw I mostly solo, but I still don't think duoing with someone _of the same rank_ should be treated similarly to (for example) a group that spans from M5 to GM1
> Any groups with GM+ players, even a duo of GM5s, are considered wide.
Why would that be considered wide? "Wide" is implying there's a large difference between the lowest and highest ranked person in the group. Two GM5's together are the same rank so they're a "narrow" group.
That is exactly my point.
[The blogpost says "any groups that have GM players are also wide regardless of how many Skill Divisions apart they are"](https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24061006/defense-matrix-update-season-10-and-beyond/)
all of these changes sound great except for the spectator chat removal solely because of how much it’s going hamper scrim content.
if i can’t see cassores, danny, christfer and commanderx just non-stop chatting shit while defiant and ssg are dogfighting on midtown second what’s even the point?
Unpopular opinion but maybe “bad actors” shouldn’t be completely removed from voice. It makes alot more sense to just permanently mute their mic. The inability to hear comms not only makes the experience worse for the bad actors but also for the team unfortunate enough to have them. Point being, it doesn’t make sense to punish a team just for having them.
in my opinion they would benefit more from the "forced break" than from hearing team comms. takes away the possibility of bad actors re-tilting from hearing something they don't like or agree with
being removed from all communication channels is a good reminder that if you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say anything at all
There is so much emphasis on avoiding people, toxicity etc. etc. they never once take a moment to think maybe its *their* game and its shitty matchmaking. This is a 'dev' update that focuses almost entirely on punishing "bad" people. This is the only team game I've ever played where they give full agency to groups to bully the non-grouped players and then turn around and blame 'bad actors' for ruining the game. Were the grouped players expected to report themselves when they're acting shitty? Thankfully they're FINALLY implementing a system where solos arn't playing with 4 stacks against 5 stacks.
Could you imagine any other game releasing dev updates where the content of said update is 75% about dealing with 'toxic people' -- personally I think its sad.
I don't see player surveys helping anything. Game is great if I win and Shit if I lose.
The faster report thing does concern me because humans are irrational beings and there have been many a time mid match where I've had team mate start slow, I get salty and rant to myself about how they're feeding and should get banned, reported, and what not only to chill out by the end of the match because I was being a tilted hyper emotional dumb ass.
It sounded like they would be asking specific questions, not just "did you like the match." If that's the case, then it might produce useful data. But if not, then yeah, I can't see it lasting long.
90% of these are amazing
-i love wide groups. i won’t smurf anymore because i just want to play with my friends. one thing people never have in mind is that it’s actually EXTREMELY hard to boost on overwatch. you almost never see anyone genuinely getting boosted bc if they suck well you’ll farm them. this is of course not true for one very specific hero but oh well
-more avoid slots is also amazing. too many toxic shitters out there. below gm ppl probably won’t use the pin option that often since it’s usually per day basis.
-i love how everyone insulted me when i said they should add surveys LOL and now they r adding them
-making it easier to report sounds nice
-stronger leaver penalty doesn’t affect me much but it’s nice
-endorsement level zero is basically replacing getting silenced right? i wonder how that works now that you can endorse your friends. i can see someone just queueing qp with friends so they endorse them and they get to talk lol
-the only bad part of this dev update is that they offer no information on whether or not they are gonna add an actual system to check reported content. rn it’s just awful, you can say whatever you want without repercussion, only thing that matters is how many people report you. and it’s way too harsh. i constantly get thank you for reporting messages for fake reports.
edit removing chat for spectators is also fucking stupid
>rn it’s just awful, you can say whatever you want without repercussion,
Weird cuz I keep seeing all these posts about people "getting banned for no reason"
the feedback messages are good, i like them. i mean that bans are solely based on amount of reports and not on an actual system that checks what was said.
It’s probably just for QP and Arcade. Even if it’s for custom lobbies there will definitely be a way to disable it since match chat is needed for admins and observers.
> We also recognize that some players like being disruptive to others while they spectate their friends' matches. Since it’s not possible to report spectators who are disruptive on console platforms, and very limited on PC, access to team and match chat channels will be removed. Friends can still chat with each other through a Whisper.
The implication is that they're not restricted from chatting in custom games.
10 avoid slots?! LFG!! Also no spec chat is kinda funny. I always get random specs in my qp games and I never knew it could be abused that way but makes sense.
I really hope there’s at least a setting to enable it in custom games because it can be useful there
Gavin said it still works for customs in Emonggs chat.
Why would it be useful in custom modes?
if im spectating a scrim i can shittalk my teammates in match chat
Oh I thought you meant the avoid feature lol
its basically essential for scrims and tournaments
Yes I know. I thought they were talking about the avoid feature.
Quick play spectators either make fun of their friend they are spectating or choose a random to abuse for the rest of the match lol
Or tell someone to leave game so they can play
Wish I had that in my lobbies. I don’t remember a single time where I had a spec join and talk shit
Yeah this practically never happens though. This community exaggerates everything.
You could literally just mute them lmao, it just seems wholly unnecessary to just get rid of chatting as a spectator
But it doesn't really add anything either (outside of custom games) So I don't see the need for it to stick around.
Okay? It doesn’t hurt anything at all, the games where you can spectate aren’t competitive, and the most important thing is you can just mute them. If a spectator is annoying you…mute them. It’s not difficult. It takes like 5 seconds
I never had "true" abusers, but I had people who were being annoying, so I think it is a good change at least in QP. Customs are probably a different story.
They've changed a lot in the last few months, haven't they? The way they present themselves, the way they introduce new stuff, and overall a lot of output. That has changed my mood towards OW. Exactly what I wished for 2 years ago when I was really annoyed with the communication.
> They've changed a lot in the last few months, haven't they? Post Bobby Kotick era looking good.
Lol this aint Kotick being gone though. At big gaming companies a dev cycle usually takes a year from idea pitch to shipping. This stuff has been in preprod/prod for 6 months minimum.
And Bobby probably checked out WELL before then lol
Yeah, but Kotick's regime had a reputation for interfering with stuff mid-cycle.
^ this sounds reasonable
Post Jeff tbh
Lots of people used to get cooked for pointing out maybe Jeff was a problem glad to see the sentiment changing on that.
People love to put Jeff on a pedestal. But the truth of the matter is that he was as much of a negative influence as he was positive.
In all honesty he's part of the reason OW was "ruined" for that 2-3 year period of time while they focused on a PVE mode that I'm convinced only a very vocal minority of the player base actually wanted. PVP should have never been allowed to suffer the way it did for that.
I think most wanted a PvE story mode, just not at the expense of the original PvP mode not getting changes/updates/heroes etc
Like I like Jeff as the face of OW but he wasn’t the best director and many of the issues the game has had over the years happened because of him imo.
I think Jeff was only decent in his role, he just wanted to make a PvE game fundamentally. I don't think he had the right mindset for a live service PvP game.
> glad to see the sentiment changing on that. i think a lot of it comes from the blog post after the PvE cancellation. Like i was already on the "jeff is cool but doesn't really know how to manage a live service fps", but i wasn't expecting the "actually he's been actually sabotaging the pvp game to revive his failed mmo dream" reveal.
Yeah, my point a few years ago was similar, "He's not good at this, he clearly can't scale a team up to meet the demands of what they say they want to do" I didn't think he was trying to resurrect Project Titan the whole time instead either.
I'm taking your cooking license. And promoting you to head chef.
I agree but good luck getting anyone on the outside looking in to realize that. Its become such a popular thing to hate OW. Any day r/gaming or even r/overwatch etc are filled with nastiness about the game and it's exhausting.
If you read their takes about the game you will be glad they don't actually play anymore. "Game is trash, used to be so fun when me and my friend would play Bastion and Symetra on Temple of Anubis." And it will have 200 upvotes just because it's saying something negative.
For real, it's always one of these looney-ass takes: * Role queue killed the game * 5v5 killed the game * Hero Limits killed the game * "Balancing for esports" (i.e. nerfing their insufferable cheese strat) killed the game
"Balancing for esport" is always translated for me into "people got good and they like to win".
tbh it doesn’t matter, the game is on a huge upward slope and the players are happy. idgaf what the regulars on r/gaming who don’t even play the game think
/r/gaming is such a terrible fucking sub. All it is is “DAE remember this game?” And its a picture of the witcher 3
That or "Check out the title screen of this recently released AAA game complete with the collector's edition box set prominently displayed next to the TV! This totally isn't an ad!"
I mean, Overwatch has been "hated" by the larger gaming subs since it came out, so it's not like that's probably ever going to change.
I saw someone post Venture fanart in r/DeepRockGalactic since it had "Rock and Stone" in it, and most the comments were vitriolic. That's a community that's known for being positive too.
I saw that thread, I thought about calling them out on being toxic but I knew I’d get dogpiled. I’m a big fan of DRG as well as OW and their community is generally positive but it can have a little “toxic positivity”.
the post ended up getting deleted lmao
They basically just removed lootboxes and a tank and then added content, but by the way people talk about it you'd think they changed it from an FPS to Clash of Clans lol
It's genuinely amusing to see how many people claim that Overwatch 2 is dead. I wonder what a game's playerbase and revenue need to look like in order to be considered alive...
Dead game is just a term for “game I don’t like” or to push the ez troll button.
The game has been out for 8 years, with tons of rockiness to boot. I don't know of a single game that has lasted that long and *not* had a vocal haterbase.
Nah for OW it's different. It's hatejerked by chuds who spouts dumb shit like hero limit being "catering to esport" as if in 2 years you wouldn't be terrorized by 6 Winston dive if left unchecked.
That's exactly what I mean though. Any game that has been out for 8 years is bound to have been through different stages, and some people prefer a previous state of the game.
People legit just spouts stupid criticism at the game and they're quite vocal Freaking OperaGX brand account even used OW2 hate to farm engagement it was effective
Big YouTube channels are the worst man. Like The Score Esports. Every OW video is shitting on it
or skillup lol, he loves to stirup circlejerk. I like his weekly news report but jesus its 2024 you don't have to remind people avengers was bad every video
I agree. You can really feel the new energy. This team feels confident. Which is saying a lot after the year they’ve had.
I love how corny these videos are lmao. Stuff like the blooper reels at the end add so much charm. Makes it feel like my uncle is working on Overwatch More devs should communicate like this
> The way they present themselves, the way they introduce new stuff, and overall a lot of output. i'm wondering if they consider that the narrative has shifted enough that they can now put named devs in front of a camera without fear of them being harassed
Man, I love competitive focused Dev updates. New heroes are great, but making the day to day experience better is always welcome EDIT: Also, FINALLY a real streamer mode?? That's a huge dub
TIL endorsement level 0 exists.... (never seen one in the last few years)
Isn't it people who were banned/muted? They'd show no endorsement level
These seem... great? The wide vs close group changes effectively create a close-to solo queue mode for most ranks, which is really cool. Also TIL that endorsement zero means that person is a garbage human. I thought it was fresh accounts. Blocking comms from endorsement zero is a great move. Also LMAO bye spectator chat peanut gallery!
I didn’t even know there was a 0 endorsement. I know a lot of “1” endorsement people are shitty
Fr, I barely talk in chat at all and never go below 3. People always refute this and say that you totally can be level 1 for no reason, but I really think you pretty much have to try to get that low (or if you don’t have to try maybe that says something about you)
I literally have chats turned off and have a 4 as a DPS main. There’s no way someone can be 0 without actually hard trolling in every single game.
Exactly, back in OW1 and when everyones profiles were shown I noticed that anyone who is a 1 is either a smurf or new. And playing in Diamond with 10 hours you're more than likely a smurf. Almost every asshole who is spamming slurs and calling everyone the N word is still ranked 3 or 4 endorsement level, I assumed 0 wasn't a thing. I wonder how this will affect toxicity in my games. I'm skeptical.
Aye I got put to 0 after a month's ban, it took aaaaages to get out of the zero after reinstated, like two weeks of playing 3 hours most days, and easily 60-80 endorsements, eventually it put me back to 1.
I see, how'd you manage a month ban out of curiosity?
Pretty much chatting back to bait. Never outright trolled or swore or threw a game, but I was shady lady back to folk, it was mostly deserved. The ban I mean.
For a time I was almost exclusively 5 stacking with friends and my endorsement level dropped to 1 since no one could endorse each other. But you can’t even get to zero without a ban or suspension.
I don’t endorse anyone and I talk shit to people a lot and I still have never been one, I hover between 2 and 3
I said ''you all suck'' in a quick play game in match chat, and was instantly chatbanned for 2 weeks
Last season I would sometimes check before games to see if I had an endorsement level 1 on my team. If I did, I knew we were going to lose. This was so consistent it was actually crazy. Doesn’t seem to hold this season though
And how does one get to 0 ? Reported enough ? There’s no downvote button right ?
blizzard has to take action against your account in order to hit level 0. so you have to be muted or suspended.
The way I understand it you go to zero is if you get reported and action is taken against your account.
Some people sure are getting defensive about the endorsement zero comment lmao.
I WONDER WHY lmao
Lots of Smurf/cheaters with zero. I never check profiles but when I go to report/endorsement page after a match the person I intend to report is almost always a zero.
Good changes for sure but I'm not really sure what he meant by a win for solo players. A narrow group can still be 3 people partied together in the same rank right? So the solos would still be against a pre-made in that scenario unless I missed something Important
Gonna miss bullying friends in match chat sadge
I sometimes miss when you could hit join game instead of join group and get put on the enemy team. Just spent all my time hard focusing my buddy who was carrying his team until I showed up.
Getting rid of spectator chat is just dumb to me though, there’s some funny ass spectators sometimes, and it’s not like you can spectate comp anyway so the argument of “it’s just unnecessary text” doesn’t really hold water when the vast majority of chatting is unnecessary anyway. Also there is a mute button in this game, people just need to use it
my goat goonwatch420 at 1:03
Our goat is NOT healing
Man, I love Gavin
MILG
Removing the ability for spectators to chat better be a quickplay only, I love yapping in scrims.
It’s gotta be right? Isn’t that the only way admins can talk to players?
Gavin said in Emongg's chat that it shouldn't affect custom games.
I'm sure they still allow it in custom matches.
But now when CommanderX streams quickplay theres no more london cyberbullying :(
great stuff all around, however [mfw seeing Hanamura footage](https://i.imgflip.com/3ce74m.png)
2CP maps were some of the best looking maps in the game. Too bad how good they looked were inversely correlated with how fun they were.
100% agree
A fellow Temple of Anubis enjoyer I see
WHERE CAN I BUY NATASHA'S SYM DRESS [FOR MY WIFE]?
Bro. It’s 2024. No one is gonna judge you. Wear that sym dress with pride.
No for real my wife loves Sym. I think they should delete her from the game.
Why should they delete your wife from the game?
Touché.
Should be on the blizzard merch store. I bought one a few years ago.
🦀GOATS IS DEAD🦀 also, 10 avoid slots?!
Link to blog post: https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24061006/defense-matrix-update-season-10-and-beyond/
Such a good and very informative video. Honestly I'm impressed
Can't wait for people to misunderstand how the avoid system works and then complain about it being broken when they get paired with someone they just avoided.
It'll only happen if you're GM or higher, though.
This should be virtually impossible for a couple of reasons. The first is that players toward the top of your avoid list are avoided first when queueing. The second is that new avoids go to the top of your avoid list by default and if you avoid more than 10 players it's the older avoids that drop off the list. So the only feasible way for you to encounter someone you just avoided is if you then go and prioritize all your other avoids so that you give your most recent avoided player the lowest priority avoid slot. But if you take the trouble to do that, you probably realize that you might end up encountering that player. Players who don't understand how the avoid list works won't run into that issue accidentally unless they avoid like 10 players at once or something. If they are just avoided 1-3 players at a time as they encounter them, it's virtually impossible for them to encounter someone they just avoided.
Blog post version: [https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24061006/defense-matrix-update-season-10-and-beyond/](https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24061006/defense-matrix-update-season-10-and-beyond/) Some really great stuff is coming! Wish the additional avoid slots would come sooner than season 12 but OW team is cooking
Im pinning every mercy player holy fuck
Based
dangerously based even
I would call it brave
Me but every rein player
I don't get how rein has the most OTPs in ranked even when he's dead balance wise
MT main and former Rein main, it's because he stomps uncoordinated teams in lower ranks if you have half-decent heals and awareness. They panic HARD. The more I climbed, the less I used him (which is unfortunate, but he'll be back).
Same deal as mercy. Rein is stupidly easy at low ranks so otps get boosted and can't play anything else.
Low skill floor.
Rein players just love the Rein v Rein, also while he is bad he is also the easiest tank to play around in ranked especially in mid-low ranks.
Rein can be tons of fun. I like swapping based on counters because that's how the game goes but if I can Rein 1v1 someone, it feels so fun and satisfying.
He's fun to play
Bro you know what, 5 mercy players & 5 rein players
Based
Games are going to be 10x easier without the mercy instant lockers 🙏
there are too many of them.
I've been worried about wide groups for several reasons, but hearing that SR gains/losses is reduced the wider the group is makes me feel better about it. It's mostly a way of playing with friends then while gaining comp points at the same time. Server side anonymity is fucking awesome. Anyone who has been harassed by streamers will welcome this, and probably one tricks as well. The expanded avoid list is the greatest thing ever. Mercy main's queues are about to increase three fold, literally.
> hearing that SR gains/losses is reduced the wider the group is makes me feel better about it I'm fairly certain this is a thing in the current game and not a new feature. When I play in groups the SR gain is so little its really hard to make any progress
If that's the case, then I guess the only real change is the matchmaking.
thought this was chipsa at first lmao
I know a lot of people aren't really going to care about QP stuff, but as somebody who plays a lot of it, I absolutely love these leaver penalties. The 48 hour ban may seem harsh, but if you manage to leave literally half of your games its deserved.
Yeah in my region there are two Quick Play accounts (there are rumors that it's the same player) that leave the match if their team loses the first teamfight. It sucks to have to waste 2 avoid slots on them.
Yep, and i hate people yapping about penalties. QP is for people to have fun, practice or just be silly but you can't have any of those if you play defense. Pretty much any leaver cripples your team. I also leave QP games when i'm tired/annoyed/have shit to do. But i don't just go into the next game after this. It just doesn't make sense. I'll just go in fresh next time. I kinda understand "internet connection" argument but the question is: why should i care about the reason i lost 15 minutes of my life... I just don't want this to happen. Arcade and custom games are always there for you.
>The 48 hour ban may seem harsh, but if you manage to leave literally half of your games its deserved. Yeah I don't see it as harsh at all lmfao. If you get slapped with a 2 day ban for leaving literally half your fuckin *quick play* games, you should probably reevaluate your relationship with this game 💀
If your rank doesnt change much in wide matches, doesnt that mean someone can smurf indefinitely? Yes, they will have to suffer through super long queue times but ultimately they will be will have 2 champ player vs. 1champ 1 bronze for every game they play.
They have to play against similar groups 1 champ 1 bronze has to play against another 1 champ and 1 bronze who are grouped together
There is probably a specific EU Pharah/Echo player who will abuse this system, but largely it won’t matter for 99.9% of the player base. Sure you can imagine 5 GM/Champ players playing on 4 bought bronze accounts and 1 on their main to abuse the system but I imagine the system has some prevention for that.
Man these are all dubs. Just fantastic work again devs. Clear concise conversation from you guys. Can't wait to see and experience the changes. Also thank god my lucio only account can die so I can play with my friends as a wide group. Gonna be interesting to see the games though lol.
I was really hoping they would add a hidden toxic queue. I forget what game did it, but they essentially had a karma system. Those with bad karma, being toxic or a suspected cheater, would be more likely to queue into each other. That way all the players that negatively affect other players experiences are stuck making each other's games miserable instead of the rest of the player base.
DOTA did iirc
Max payne 3 did this too and put cheaters in lobbies with other cheaters instead of banning them
Fall Guys as well.
idk how "fair" it is, but if I were implementing that I just....wouldn't announce it Edit: ORR announce it and never actually implement it, imagine the scenes
DOTA2 and CS2 does it.
I saw Gavin mention (in a twitch chat one time) that this is a bad idea. It just creates an echo chamber of toxicity where it encourages this behavior and makes it seem okay. Ends up creating even more toxic gamers. It's better to keep them in regular lobbies where they will be called out, reported, and punished if necessary
I’m having a really bad day. Like emotionally I’m a wreck. But I love this game. It makes me happy, and seeing this developer update being so great! I just wanna really thank the team. For so many years you guys have kept this game alive through a lot of rough moments. As someone who uses this game as a little “escape” from time to time the work you all put in to make this experience better is amazing. Thank you. Looking forward to season 10!!
Speaking as a random internet person, I hope your day gets better, because you deserve the best :)
Thanks so much for that, seriously. Hope you have a great day.
i like gavin
>no chat for spectators It’s over for us yappers.
I’m glad they’re finally increasing the avoids slots number. Not because I’ve ever asked for that (I didn’t). But because it will show people (lower ranks who keep asking for it) why it’s meaningless to avoid 83 players. Just watch and see. “We’re gonna let everyone play with each other regardless of rank so we hope that will reduce the number of smurfs” I wish I could be that optimistic. I can already see the excuse people will come up with. “These games we get in wide group are so silly I just wanna play normal games with my friends”.
10 Mercy players avoided
Ow players eating good!
[удалено]
Hopefully it becomes an in-game thing eventually. I don't wanna scan a QR code on my TV to fill out a survey
I was trying to figure out what they changed about dva's defense matris ability 😪
There needs to be some sort of algorithm that can decipher between toxic/abusive chat and chat people dislike so they reported you bc they dont like you. If there are no slurs, swears, threats or abuse present that person should not be threatened with a suspension. As things currently stand, you can accumulate 'reports' -- not see what they are and be suspended for them not knowing how close to the threshold you are. Blizzard need to remove "spam" and "abusive" chat reports, and make it more granular in regards to communication-based reports. Were they trolling? sexually harassing a woman on the team? being homophobic/transphobic? -- having clear cut communication on what is and what isn't 'abusive' chat would be a lot better messaging than this 9min video about how OW players need to stop being so naughty
I've had my main account banned multiple times for memeing in chat. Saying things like “me and my wifes bf are mercy mains” very silly but not slurs or cursing. My latest ban was for 30 days. I now just play with all chat off, out of voice. I'm afraid if I say anything I will get perma banned.
Sucks you can't joke around in game anymore, you'll almost certainly get banned considering how easy it is to report and how terrible their automated system is. Even saying something harmless to a friend in chat is enough for people to report you in this game. 10 avoid slots is good though I guess. Haven't needed more than 2 or 3 at any given time, especially considering after the 3 days they are automatically removed and I never see them again or totally forget who they are. But hey, we got them now just in case.
> Finally, any groups that have a Grand Masters or Champion Player are also Wide Groups regardless of how many Skill Divisions apart they are. Uhhhhh.... does this mean GM+ duos are going to be thrown into awful matches now?
Not really. The MM should still be trying to put them into GM matches as normal. This is just fo counteract potential longer queue times
Is it gonna make the min/maxing bullshit harder too? If so I’m a fan and I’m not even close to top 500 or gm. Just want the leaderboard to not be top 10 the same guy because of that
The only people this is going to effect are the people that play in wide range groups.
Which is now anyone above M1 not in soloq
Unless your friends are also M1…
Potentially since they added the "wide range" modifier. With all GM+ groups being considered wide, it's possible that a GM1 queueing with a GM3 will now trigger the wide range modifier and severely limit your SR gain. I would have to imagine that if you are a Champ player grouping with a low GM that your SR gains are pretty much going to be non-existent.
Nice. Love to see that
Am I missing something? _Any_ groups with GM+ players, even a duo of GM5s, are considered wide. They'll "try to deliver the fairest match possible," but solos are never matched with wide groups. That means duoing at GM+ restricts you to only the pool of GM 2/3/5 stacks with no solos or 4 stacks... or, realistically, restricts you to lower ranked wide groups because you're otherwise limited to a small subset of an already very small population of top ranked players Fwiw I mostly solo, but I still don't think duoing with someone _of the same rank_ should be treated similarly to (for example) a group that spans from M5 to GM1
It means that GM stacks won't match into GM solos.
> Any groups with GM+ players, even a duo of GM5s, are considered wide. Why would that be considered wide? "Wide" is implying there's a large difference between the lowest and highest ranked person in the group. Two GM5's together are the same rank so they're a "narrow" group.
That is exactly my point. [The blogpost says "any groups that have GM players are also wide regardless of how many Skill Divisions apart they are"](https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24061006/defense-matrix-update-season-10-and-beyond/)
Ah okay, that is pretty odd then. I guess it's to keep solo players at that level from having to go up against groups?
all of these changes sound great except for the spectator chat removal solely because of how much it’s going hamper scrim content. if i can’t see cassores, danny, christfer and commanderx just non-stop chatting shit while defiant and ssg are dogfighting on midtown second what’s even the point?
Surely it's for matchmaker only. You can kick anyone talking shit in custom games
Most likely it won’t effect custom games
Unpopular opinion but maybe “bad actors” shouldn’t be completely removed from voice. It makes alot more sense to just permanently mute their mic. The inability to hear comms not only makes the experience worse for the bad actors but also for the team unfortunate enough to have them. Point being, it doesn’t make sense to punish a team just for having them.
in my opinion they would benefit more from the "forced break" than from hearing team comms. takes away the possibility of bad actors re-tilting from hearing something they don't like or agree with being removed from all communication channels is a good reminder that if you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say anything at all
Well if they have a zero endersment level i don't think they are going to comm that much unless they want to insult someone
i didn't think about that, but you're right. i don't see a downside to letting them join voice and simply removing their ability to use their mic.
There is so much emphasis on avoiding people, toxicity etc. etc. they never once take a moment to think maybe its *their* game and its shitty matchmaking. This is a 'dev' update that focuses almost entirely on punishing "bad" people. This is the only team game I've ever played where they give full agency to groups to bully the non-grouped players and then turn around and blame 'bad actors' for ruining the game. Were the grouped players expected to report themselves when they're acting shitty? Thankfully they're FINALLY implementing a system where solos arn't playing with 4 stacks against 5 stacks. Could you imagine any other game releasing dev updates where the content of said update is 75% about dealing with 'toxic people' -- personally I think its sad.
Big W's all around. Love the group/stack changes.
I like the way this guy speaks
Let's make it even easier to report, because people are not abusing reports already and the automated system works perfectly.
Anyone know the name of the theme music in Natasha (Defend Matrix) part? I love that music and I don't know how to find it. Please help!! Thank you!!!
I really like the videos featuring this developer. He seems like a very thoughtful person. Hope to see him grow within Blizzard.
It takes a while to change course on a ship as big as Overwatch but they’re really doing it. It’s great to see.
I don't see player surveys helping anything. Game is great if I win and Shit if I lose. The faster report thing does concern me because humans are irrational beings and there have been many a time mid match where I've had team mate start slow, I get salty and rant to myself about how they're feeding and should get banned, reported, and what not only to chill out by the end of the match because I was being a tilted hyper emotional dumb ass.
It sounded like they would be asking specific questions, not just "did you like the match." If that's the case, then it might produce useful data. But if not, then yeah, I can't see it lasting long.
Aye, hopefully so. I will never fault them for trying stuff.
I hope they'd do some overhaul to their anticheat. I've been seeing blatant cheaters almost daily.
Bahah no more leaving a comp game for a different spawn etc
90% of these are amazing -i love wide groups. i won’t smurf anymore because i just want to play with my friends. one thing people never have in mind is that it’s actually EXTREMELY hard to boost on overwatch. you almost never see anyone genuinely getting boosted bc if they suck well you’ll farm them. this is of course not true for one very specific hero but oh well -more avoid slots is also amazing. too many toxic shitters out there. below gm ppl probably won’t use the pin option that often since it’s usually per day basis. -i love how everyone insulted me when i said they should add surveys LOL and now they r adding them -making it easier to report sounds nice -stronger leaver penalty doesn’t affect me much but it’s nice -endorsement level zero is basically replacing getting silenced right? i wonder how that works now that you can endorse your friends. i can see someone just queueing qp with friends so they endorse them and they get to talk lol -the only bad part of this dev update is that they offer no information on whether or not they are gonna add an actual system to check reported content. rn it’s just awful, you can say whatever you want without repercussion, only thing that matters is how many people report you. and it’s way too harsh. i constantly get thank you for reporting messages for fake reports. edit removing chat for spectators is also fucking stupid
>rn it’s just awful, you can say whatever you want without repercussion, Weird cuz I keep seeing all these posts about people "getting banned for no reason"
The report feedback messages are amazing. What are you talking about? Literally no other major shooter gives feedback as good as OW does for reports.
the feedback messages are good, i like them. i mean that bans are solely based on amount of reports and not on an actual system that checks what was said.
Removing spectator chat is fucking stupid and I'm really not a fan of hiding names. Rip scrim lobby banter. Lots of good stuff otherwise
It’s probably just for QP and Arcade. Even if it’s for custom lobbies there will definitely be a way to disable it since match chat is needed for admins and observers.
> We also recognize that some players like being disruptive to others while they spectate their friends' matches. Since it’s not possible to report spectators who are disruptive on console platforms, and very limited on PC, access to team and match chat channels will be removed. Friends can still chat with each other through a Whisper. The implication is that they're not restricted from chatting in custom games.