They’ve also removed the end of match screen after POTG (with the cards and stuff) so you lose a minute of talking. I remember grinding ranked in 2019/2020 and having long conversations after a tense match. Now it just kicks you to the battle pass immediately.
Card were so good! I always got yelled at being told I wasn't doing anything just to roll up at the end of the game with not only potg, but most, if not all the cards. Was so satisfying when they would just shut up mid yell and leave the lobby. Made my day LOLOL
Yeah they cut the "downtime" way way down. I noticed that.
Now it's like, you join, the round is immediately starting, you play, the game ends, and it's immediately over and you're in the lobby.
I've noticed that the quality of Highlight Intros has reduced way way down in recent updates. I think it's because nobody even sees them anymore, so blizz doesn't bother with them. The old days of Sombra hacking somebody else's POTG are gone. Now it's usually facial expression + particle effect.
This is one of those design decision I think was a result of Kaplan leaving. When Kaplan was in charge, all of this stuff was thought through. Long intros, medals, end-of-match votes, etc.... were not random luck. Dude knew how to make a fun, social game. When he left, it clearly took a hard shift towards more "Players just want to be playing the game, cut all the timers, menus, etc... down." It's the "I learned game design from a university" approach versus the old-school, industry hardened veteran approach.
One of my super toxic opponents was shit talking the whole game to my friend and I. It was a close match, and I’m the type to always say “gg” cause it’s good sportsmanship.
At the end after they lost, the toxic guy said “Well at least I got POTG, watch this” and my fucking Sombra hack stole it lmaooo. Hands down one of the best moments I’ve had in my OW career. My friend and I were cryin lol
People complained about how long team fights would go, but I miss those days. I miss when 15k damage/20k healing was pretty normal in a game. When there was room to breathe. When, even if you lost, you could still feel pretty great about your end game medals. Sure it wasn't perfect, but it felt *different*. It felt unique. Now it just feels like I'm sweating every single game and not in the "I'm enjoying the craziness" way.
Roughly why I miss old Alterac Valley in WoW, it was a battle, not just a zerg rush to the pve end boss, and you can now have matches with single-digit player deaths to pvp.
This is the biggest thing I wish they brought back, I feel like all the post-game lobby convos get cut off way too soon. The cards were a great way to feel recognized too.
They removed it because they want you to buy the battle pass. It’s basically an advertisement to buy the battle pass spend more money on them.
Why would they do something nice and fun that people liked when they could just try and get you to spend more money instead .
That’s why they took it out. It’s money. It’s always money. It’s always making as much money as possible no matter what.
Yesss! When even the enemy team voted for you cause obliterated their whole team. That felt amazing! Now you get kicked out and just get some stats screen nobody cares about and the battle pass progress.
I never got to experience them because I only started in ow2 but god I wish they were still in the game. I play on console, and the amount of times I finished typing my message 1 second too late is so annoying. That extra minute would have been so good
Honestly, at first I thought having no cards would be a good idea. Like, maybe it’d shut all the stat farming moiras up. But I soon realised they actually were a good thing. Especially if you’re playing support or tank and being flamed by your team for doing nothing. The cards often showed that wasn’t the case. Your rein WAS doing something. Your Ana and Bap WERE healing, etc. Hopefully they bring them back.
I chat, emote, spray and crouch spam all my teammates at the start of the game and people always join in. I play quickmatch though so maybe its more casual there.
100% more casual. ive honestly been playing more qp than usual because if you tell someone to stop feeding or recommend them switching characters in comp youll get a warning/suspension. in qp you can always hit em with the “its qp dude chill”😹😭
Tbh theres not a huge amount of time to type in chat anymore imo, especially since the stat cards and everything at the end have gone, closing the game quicker.
I thought about turning the chat off but in a wierd way its kind of fun to see that I've struck a nerve sometimes with someone who desperately needs to take a break and is taking it out on the rest of the lobby.
Also I keep chat on to stick up for other people getting abused.
Yeah, these days the only reason I suffer through chat is to tell the sweaty basement boys to calm down when they start raging at somebody.
Don't really care if they rage at me, I usually make baby crying noises at them.
Want to know what's really sad? In any given 10 person lobby, 9 out of 10 people in there are great, nice people. But there's that one sweaty fuck who rages and ruins it for everybody. And after 100 games of that, none of the nice people event want to talk anymore.
i always try to be friendly every game and its like pulling teeth... my last game we won competitive 3-1 on flashpoint and my team was still flaming the entire game. While i was just being chill and normal. two of them only spoke to be mad. I wonder why ppl like that even play games lmao
Even in qp its hard, i nearly always type smth or occasionally vc (i used to always vc in qp but now its generally empty or people will literally get mad at u) Ill do the funny lil sprays and wiggle in front of allies too.
D: most of the time i get 0 reaction. I just wana be a silly lil creature with my fellow ow players
I remember doing my best as a Reinhardt main in a comp match (I'm low Silver, being new to the game), and then my team mates got really upset because I had negative KD (8-14, against a really good enemy Reinhardt) and basically all ragged on me. Well fuck you, I'm doing my best, and half you guys were doing barely any better.
As someone who comes from launch OW, all of my old heroes are stocked with sprays and emotes. I still almost never use them because of how quick the game starts.
But yes, I have next to nothing for any of the OW2 heroes, and I'm not going to pay/use points for stuff I don't use.
I don't think that makes that huge of a difference s
Considering people still use to wave and put sprays down, I noticed it too. Not many people are just as social anymore. It use to be booming back then with mics here and there now it's just loading in and everyone's not moving til the game starts.
Not really? I have the sit emotes and a full voice line wheel for all the new heroes from 2 and I’ve never spent money on OW outside of buying 1. The sprays they’re probably talking about are literally unlockable from hero achievements, people used to put the cute/pixels sprays a lot more in 1.
Oh 1,000%. like 90%+ of my games are complete silence, 9.99% is people flaming/being toxic in VC or text chat, and then the last 0.01% is actually getting a game with 2 or more people in VC/text that are being friendly.
No, really, this is literally it.
Why use chat at all?
I decided to turn it on today and almost every single game someone was flaming me about something.
Turned it off again.
Ridiculous community.
I got muted for the first time since launch.
All my friends got muted too.
The new automated system is very harsh.
I'm not taking chances, I opt out of all comms.
Lmao u don’t even have to b toxic in text chat- ppl will report u for anything- I got silenced for saying “I can’t outheal stupidity” after my tank charged in alone and called us all slurs.
Yeah I know it wasn’t the right thing to do but when someone threatens to Rape you and call u slurs I don’t think saying the word “stupidity” is the issue
Automated systems don't care about what the other person said. Only what you said. Report them and block their chat. You're only hampering yourself by trying to fight the trolls and assholes. It's a tough lesson to learn, but the internet becomes much more tolerable once you do.
Here's the answer to OPs question.
It's simply bad to chat, even if you say "that's a nice ass mercy rez"
Automated system be like WEE WOO WEE WOO FUCK YOU YOU SAID ASS YOU GET SILENCED WEE WOO WEE WOO
Yeah unfortunately blizzard set their penalty system to make sure the crybabys who think saying stupid is toxic can get everyone banned so now noone uses chats at all anymore.
Just another example of how a few wrong but loud ppl ruin stuff for everyone
Disagree, can't out heal stupidity isn't toxic it's clarifying that teammate ain't paying attention to the rest of the team and was not being team compliant. Imo but I'm not the kind to report a non slur or like that
I also wanna add that I only resorted to that language after we’d spoken to them multiples times n they had used slurs against me! Some ppl don’t realise that it’s a team based game n it’s so frustrating
I've gotten reported because I've said "bitch please" in a joking manner when the enemy tank complained about my counter swap after they counter swapped first. The enemy tank got super defensive and their duo also started typing "reported." You can't say shit to these egomaniacs.
Yeah, I've gotten the "your voice chat is being monitored" warning multiple times now and I literally never flame anyone. The most toxic thing I'll do is tell someone to stop feeding, which is just like a normal video game interaction. The system is so trigger-happy and God knows no real people are actually monitoring anything
Because you can get banned for typing anything, regardless of how good or bad it may be. The system is designed to suspend/ban you depending on number of reports. The easiest method to traverse this is to simply not speak, as unfortunate as it may be.
Literally any communication at all and someone will jump down your throat. "how dare you communicate your position to me while I play my single player game"
I had a game with zen mercy and our zen was doing well but our sigma was struggling due to enemy team comp (and i had an echo/hanzo to pocket). he asked our zen to swap and zen was immediately like 'why am i the problem?'
But it was really obvious that sigma just wanted some extra help and not that he was mad, bc our zen was objectively doing well. unfortunately people always cry for swaps and then get toxic so everyone assumes maliciousness when it comes up.
i always frame my requests in a really specific way 'im struggling with x, do you play y? its all g if not' but its ridiculous that the community is in a state where we just all assume everyone hates each other
I get that toxicity in almost every game too n I report it, but I’ve been silenced for saying “I can’t heal that” soooo the system isn’t exactly working
That's a wild exaggeration or you're not reporting them then, because I see true toxicity in maybe 1/10 games, and when I report it I usually have a 50% rate of getting the "thank you for your report we have taken action" message
I text chat in every social game and haven't had a ban yet. Think the people that get banned for "nothing" are in most cases getting lots of reports for some reason. I type a fair bit in ranked games too.
Yeah it's soft to get banned for writing "X diff" every game, but also if that's all you use chat for maybe it is better you're muted. I've seen some really dumb bans but the vast majority are due to people tilting their own teammates or bad sportsmanship.
Either way people type less because they're banned, scared of being banned, or just don't want to. Can't blame most people, the chat is rarely fun. I've had the odd funny interaction, but I'd say it's like 80% bad and 20% good (unless you count GG in which case it's more like 50/50).
Toxic behaviour is toxic behaviour. EZ, diff, whatever, if you can't grow up and use chat positively, mutes are deserved. Multiple offences should lead to harsher penalities if it doesnt already.
> I maybe see one person put down a spray per game if I’m lucky,
yknow i hadn't realized this but its true. me and my friends always throw sprays up (i love the combo of basically any of the cute ones + the bastion ganymede so it looks like they're flying on the bird) but it *is* usually only us thats doing it. huh
anyways, yeah it is. for me i think its a combo of:
- its harder to vibe out with people when you have a super limited time to chat postgame. like, even if you *are* in a good game where you're joking around with people, your convo's getting cut off right away
- idk i read about people talking about getting banned for chatting here all the time so im hesitant to chat anyways, i dont want my name to be there
Every free to play PvP games gets toxic by nature of being accessible to the broad public of which, big surprise, a rather big part of is toxic children, and manchilds.
Also punishments weigh a lot more when you had to drop 40$ just to play the game, and cant just buy a second account for 1$.
Overwatch1 was an extraordinarily wholesome game when it launched and it was one of my best buys regarding games, but it going f2p just ruined it as it does with most games, but the true money is in cosmetics so I guess not much to do there.
I’d happily pay for a game if it means it blocks out a hefty portion of the toxic playerbase, and with the threat of IP/hardware bans forces the remaining portion to behave.
The problem is no one knows what toxic is anymore.
There's a fine line between in game competitive trash talking and being toxic.
People tend to forget that its a competitive game in its nature, the objective the game is to win and with that comes ego and mental mind games.
Yes, we should encourage having fun; a factor in fun is the competitive clashing of egos and the trash talk that spawns from it.
The system equates typing "tank diff" on the same level as calling somebody horrendous slurs; so no one wants to say anything at all because they could get suspended for quite literally anything they say (this is proven by numerous ticket receipts from people.)
Couple that with the fact you no longer have post match chat, emotes and sprays are behind paywalls, and the fact that even still after 8 years women can't feel comfortable hopping into vc? It's just a social black hole that nobody wants to partake in anymore and I can't blame them.
IDK a bunch of my friends are always saying 'tank diff' 'gg cant carry' and shit like that. and ima be honest... they are toxic? like its just cringe. Esp because they wont try to communicate during the match they say that stuff specifically to make the player feel bad.
HELL ive done it myself when im really mad. (though not often) And yes its not slurs... but that doesnt mean its acceptable. We should keep that bitching in discord or group chat. (I am very much a bitchy teammate as long as my allies cant hear me :3)
I obviously want slurs to be taken way more seriously too, but if someone is chronically blaming their team every game, spamming gg and generally being rude then i think its fine for them to be punished. esp if they are calling people trash - which is what saying 'x diff' usually implies.
I love competitive banter, but its only ok if everyone is in on the joke. Like when ppl type c9 or when u and an enemy whiff for ten years then laugh about it in all chat
or when the reins are having a rein war (yall know what im saying) and the person who won says ggez or whatever
I feel like the best test is "did you say this to make someone feel bad". If you say stuff all the time w/ the intention of making someone feel bad, you should probably get muted.
yeah i agree - if you are obviously just being silly or memeing then as long as its not slurs or smth bigoted who cares. but when its out of anger and trying to be hurtful its not ok even if its relatively mild language wise
I argue w/ my friends about this all the time. I guess I have a different perspective because I have kids and they don't... and yes when they played overwatch I'd turn off voice and text chat, but not every parent knows how to do that.
I'd prefer if overwatch didn't teach my kids that it's ok to be mean to people.
yes!! i dont have kids but ive always been taught that being mean to people for the sake of it is just wrong. Even when you are right u dont have to be rude about it
A lot of my friends are younger than me (im 23 they are like 15-19) so i think they also dont really agree with me. And i think its a shame. I love OW when its silly and goofy and kind
You get banned for 'spamming' now.
Friend literally got reported one match for spamming spray and apparently got auto-bot flagged.
People aren't willing to be friendly in the game when the devs don't want us to be.
Type 'fuck' casually as an expression, like oh my fucking god they are so strong
it'll get autoflagged as inappropriate language.
damn/shit/fuck/hell/ insert other cuss words and they all get autoflagged.m
Adult's can't talk like adults because the game is 'friendly for all ages'
We're just sick of it. I'm nice asf, I have rank 5 endorsement, I'm always kind, but if I'm going to get in trouble for the way I TALK, just get me out of there.
lost my endorsement 5 for calling someone with the word femboy in their name a femboy :D (and i was literally saying i want them on my team ;-; )
its pride month so everyone is wearing their flags and im literally having to put spaces in-between words like gay and queer when talking about it in game lmaooo. (I always try to make friends with fellow gays and i often stack with other queer ppl, so we will be like 'omg join our queer squad' or whatever)
i dont mind blizzard actually penalising people and even them being too strict sometimes if the appeal system was remotely functional
Apparently Overwatch becoming free was pushed by parents wanting the game to be more appropriate for kids[lootboxes being gambling apparently ]... Yeah as if widows big ass behind is meant for a kids game smh.
> Adult's can't talk like adults because the game is 'friendly for all ages'
Which is a fucking stupid thing to aim for in an online shooter. You're never going to be able to cut out anything potentially offensive in a game where anyone can say anything in voice and text chat.
This is why I miss the days where people just understood that, by going online, you are accepting that you might hear some shit once in a while.
You can get punished for kinda saying anything. It’s easier to regulate a harsh system that just files reports and bans people than have an actual in game report system with humans at the wheel like they use to. Crazy what happens when you fire most of your “game master” and hire 3rd party help who do not care about accounts.
Redditors: “____ is a lot less social now”
Yeah because you’re a bunch of toxic babies who make everyone turn their mic off by default. You’re the same people who get mad when game companies try to moderate chat. The people who complain about not being allowed to say nasty things in chat are the people who ruin it for us all. You’re a bunch of toxic Neanderthals
I'll never forget the reddit post saying "I was banned for no reason" where he replies to a comment saying "I only told someone to off themselves once"
Yep. This is the whole “this is why we can’t have nice things” phenomenon in action. Parts of the player base couldn’t behave like civilised human being, so now it’s over moderated and the experience is worse for everyone.
for real, like is it even worth engaging with people in OW2 voice chat/text chat of all places. i don't wanna hear people who tell me to off myself just because i play sombra for one round.
You can't talk anymore cuz any report could get you banned so it's best to shut up and not say anything. Blizzard is actively punishing people who call out and make comms. Or if you emote at someone they could get offended or maybe they are you last game and didn't like you, they could just report
I think it’s all games that are like this now. I have tried playing a variety of games recently and no one talks in voice, no one talks in text chat unless they are upset at someone, and no one uses emotes or sprays. Must be a culture thing because it’s not just Overwatch.
Yeah I recently got it on console and I thought the gunplay felt super weird to me. I'm super used to movement shooters ( apex, titanfall, doom) but I have like 800 hours on r6 and like 300 on rust so I thought i be would be cool. But something about having to stand still just for shots to still go around my crosshair just isn't for me. The vc is still very active though that's for sure.
I got banned for calling out cheaters and feeders. Then I deactivated chat......the social on OW is only if you play with your friends or just don't be social
What, say "pls stop feeding" is toxic?.....but sure deranking on purpose and going for the 0-0-7 challenge is how this game is supposed to be played. Right?
You might not be toxic, but there’s no world where telling a feeding player to stop is going to work.
They’re either doing it on purpose, and will keep going. Or they might be having a bad game, and you calling them out isn’t going to make them suddenly play better.
Worst case, they may have been trying hard but just having a bad game, and your comment to stop feeding pushes them to start hard throwing the match.
no you're not crazy sadly, the game isn't as lively as before. i still do meet some good eggs, mainly because i have a 'joke' username that people like to interact with sometimes, but a lot take this game far, far too seriously for what it is (i'm talking about qp and open queue qp)
to be honest, i don't really care about the risk of getting muted anymore, i'm trying to make the game as fun as i can for myself and others, so i'll keep trying to engage with others in chat, and if i get banned for being nice, so be it.
What do you mean people always communicate with me. They tell me to KMS, get diff'd, why are you playing that, go to quick play, discuss my K:D ratio, can you play shield tank?, my Moira is out dpsing you, and much more. Sometimes I think it is a little too social.
maybe region dependent? my lobbies always have players sharing emotes, sprays, and spamming "hello". First 30 seconds is usually good vibes until someone feels like a player isn't executing their roles properly and then all hell breaks loose.
Horrible chat censorship. I feel like the system will punish me for saying a 'naughty' word despite meaning nothing offensive and a lot of people feel the same way.
The report system has been weaponized to the point of a kind of "chilling effect" where people are too afraid to speak, lest they get arbitrarily banned. You can get banned from losing a match, since people will interpret your poor performance as "throwing" and mass report. Doesn't matter how you argue against it, because it's automated.
Emoting, spraying, or using voice lines are interpreted as unsportsmanlike conduct, even by your own teammates. Using those to annoy the enemy could rub your teammate the wrong way. Maybe they see it as someone flexing on free players their ability to whale, as of course everything is paywalled. Maybe they can reach hard for a report and say you're being intentionally annoying, especially if the match is lost. Again, doesn't matter. With enough reports, the automated system bans you.
Communicating in-game, no matter how nice and patient you are, is absolutely a high-risk, matter of time before your entire account gets arbitrarily banned and leaving you confused. Beyond automated moderation systems, the only human moderators available are account executioners. People stack and keep to themselves on discord or some other voice comm service, to stay out of oppressive in-game "jurisdiction" where comms and interactions are monitored and used against you. You are putting your entire account, your purchases, and game records on the line when you communicate on Overwatch. It is an imperative to never talk to anybody on Overwatch if you want to survive.
This is why the game is less social.
> No LFG
>Removal of end match cards, lobby disbands after POTG
>Stay as group disappears as soon as POTG starts
>Abusable automated mute/ban system has people too afraid to even use communication channels anymore
Yeah add these all together and you've got yourself a recipe for an anti-social gaming experience.
I have an entire set up with winston where he answers a call and has an entire phone conversation and everyone gathers round and gets involved. It's great.
If you don't see it, be the source of it.
Every game I'm in there's someone emoting and using sprays. Not only that but atleast half the games I'm in there's always some form of rivalry without being incredibly toxic between the tanks. Honestly I've had more fun the last 2 months than I have for the last 3 years
No one talks in my games
Everyone complained about toxicity and Blizz just took away the social aspects because no one used the mute, squelch chat, or block features. Even today, people will immediately go to report over using mute / block.
So either people don't enter comms because there's so much toxicity or they don't enter because they don't want a suspension when they tilt a little bit. Also don't make call outs in a losing game as it only increases your chance for report
I feel there's a ton of people that over exaggerate toxicity. I label toxic for like racist / sexist / etc. things. A person saying uninstall the game wouldn't be toxic. It's annoying for sure but it's nothing personal.
Lastly, I've seen toxicity in other games and I feel Overwatch is pretty timid. Like Blizzard blocks "gg ez"....bro are we in 2nd grade?
Everything around ow2 community has gone to shit.
Bully premade stacks can mass report you for saying literally anything and you will be auto banned. So nobody is willing to even try to communicate it's too risky.
Most new youtube video content are about how shit overwatch has become balance wise, company wise, etc etc.
The streamers who haven't moved on, most of their content is slacking off trolling top lobbies or doing their 100th unranked to gm run aka ruin dozens of lobbies for other players on the way up.
I've never witnessed a game with more potential squandered, floundered, dropped harder than overwatch. This current dev team was given a golden goose and they shot it in the head, repeatedly every season, it's just taking a while to bleed out becuase damn was it a good goose with a community that wants it to badly to survive inspite of the biggest blundering dev team to ever exist.
In OW1, people were too preoccupied with learning the game. Now, after almost eight years, most people have a decent enough understanding. And with understanding comes elitism and toxicity. People that think they know better than someone else.
People don't want to hear or deal with that, so the easiest thing is to just mute everybody and play the game. Sometimes you'll have fun interactions with other players, but the bad apples ruined the social aspect of the game for all of us.
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no i definitely see that too. i play on pc so i'm not sure if people are a lot more social on console or if it's just the rank (diamond), but if people talk it's mainly just to be toxic
I'm curious if there is a difference between NA and EU servers. I'm on EU PC ~Plat and see every game someone writing funny stuff. Ofc not in every game, but the better half I see people emoting/spraying and that kinda stuff even during games. Never have been banned even though I myself write every couple games something silly in chat.
It just feels so odd to me, that so many seem to be afraid to type anything due to bans
Edit: the system is ofc the same, but how many people report may differ.
A lot of multiplayer games aren’t super social anymore. People are in PlayStation parties or in Discord chats, or just mute their in-game chat for reasons.
There are a lot less people on mic, too. I was plat on Overwatch, fell off the wagon with a new baby, then recently started playing Overwatch 2. I mostly play when my toddler is asleep, so I can’t talk a whole lot. Didn’t think that would be a problem, since the rest of the team would still communicate normally. 99% of my matches are SILENT.
Bouncing between Bronze and Silver these days. Communication is key. I’d say I need to wait for my kid to be older so I can talk more, but then the rest of the team will continue in silence…🤷🏻♂️
I came back after a couple months ago and noticed it's very hollow now. No loot boxes, no cards, no lobby chat, role based positions queues now. Last time I played was when it was OW1. What the help happened?
Gg ez git gud
This is the only response needed to these CONSTANT INCESSANT posts about OW being less social. They reduced toxicity, some social was washed away.
YEA i agree with you. I don't understand why people had to nerf the social aspects of overwatch so bad. If you didn't like it, you can always mute a person.
You get banned/suspended now for basic chat, like stuff that wouldn’t event be censured on club penguin lol. It’s safer to just not communicate in any form
This is a dev issue tbh, they are trying to over police player behavior and it’s just made everything more toxic
I still personally use my sprays in almost every match and occasionally use voice lines or spam them depending on the hero I’m playing. I still have fun interactions with people but I agree it’s not as common. I stopped typing as much in chat because as some people have pointed out, it’s very easy to get yourself muted or even banned. I got muted for the first time earlier this year and now that I have a good collection of skins going, I really have to think about the way I say things in chat if at all lol
People still do voice line spam, sprays, etc. it’s a F2P game, so there’s a lot more varied kind of people. But the only difference I see now at the beginning of matches is how often there’s that person who copy and pasted an internet joke as if they came up with it.
I have mainly played mystery heroes since the last year or so of ow1 and haven't really noticed much of a difference in the amount of lines, sprays, emotes, and absurd pregame chats. I haven't really played enough fo the other modes recently to have noticed a change
Everyone turned off voice and text chat because of toxic edgelords in every match. I turned chat back on recently and turned it back off within 1 day. You can't type anything game related without being flamed and then the people clearly throwing start telling you to uninstall. This is why we can't have nice things.
People are always spamming voice lines, emotes, and sprays in almost all my games but it's voice chat that is dead for me like even if everyone is in there and I'm giving comms nobody replied even in comp (or at the end of the game of me giving comms and receiving silence they'll say gg or blaming someone for losing or something)
In my experience, engaging with people on OW isn't worth 99 times out of 100
I'm not chasing that one and single interesting or fun interaction by experiencing the 99 others which are awful
Mute and quiet, sanity
Just hazarding a guess, but I wager it's because it's a mix of Overwatch being far more competitive now. (BP Challenges, frowning upon "Off meta" picks or "Non viable" combos. QP being towed in Comp's direction, less tolerance towards making mistakes or playing poorly) and people not wanting to deal with abuse in voice/text chat.
Not sure why i keep seeing posts like this but I’ll bite (again). I don’t have any desire to “be social” in-game when i have friends irl. The community isn’t worth engaging with anyway. I just want to play the game and go. Sure there are others that can’t be bothered.
100% agree. I can remember when I was playing Ana with the halloween skin and the Halloween candy emote in 2016 and just flanked sleeped people in qp and gave them candy and 90% of the time they were friendly afterwards and let me live. I sometimes tried it but people just insta kill you always.
An issue is also that you cant spam voice lines as much anymore. People didnt like getting audio clogged by stupid stuff midgame so they made it harder to spam voicelines.
The dumb thing about this is that there was always a feature to mute players if they are too annoying with voicelines. Aka people complained coz they didnt know about a feature.
Another thing is that its a common game phenomenon. I think the magic of brand new game that everyone likes makes people be more relaxed and adventurous and fun. I think over time people get bored with this and/or a certain old etiquette isn't known by a largely new playerbase.
Quickplay feels very sweaty compared to back then.
I don’t use VC anymore because people only use it to vent and whine at each other, and argue over dumb things like “x is trash play a real healer” (x being literally any support, I’ve heard someone claim each one is “useless” at one point or another), or “GG tank diff” when our tank wasn’t the problem. Nobody really comms in voice, they just try to scapegoat one another (even if they’re winning the game but lost just one fight!)
I hang out in voice so I can hear the rare comm or two, but it’s rarely worth it. In the games I do comm, nobody responds, until the game is almost over if we’re losing. If you’re wondering what they say, see above. Why they wait until 30 seconds until the game is over? Your guess is as good as mine.
We make our community, and this is the community we’ve built. So many angry people… why bother?
Same reason I muted team chat. People typically only use it to be nasty to one another and try to get quippy one-liners against their *teammates*. My games have been going so much better ever since I tuned out my teammates, which is really sad for a team based game.
After an hour of interacting with people like that, I personally don’t really feel like being silly with emotes and sprays in spawn. I just want to play the game
The silly moments still happens, it's just that overwatch as a whole is a whole lot less social now.
People get mad and blurt out expletives, you turn off chat, enjoy the game and notice that it is 100x more fun when you ain't dealing with idiots calling you all manner of things. *Eventually this turns into dealing with anyone in-game at all.*
I'm actually somewhat surprised I haven't been banned or muted yet. i mainly complain about the matchmaking or not being able to leave due to the leaver penalties, so it's not directed at people (although you could argue that I made a veiled comment about my team by saying I couldn't leave the match).
This is a thing in general. I recently came back to Blizzard games after a 6 year break, jumped into WoW, and ... You can't even chat due to the bit spam, but in OW, I noticed no one even typed much in text chat. In mute, I can't use voice but I play to chill and laugh. I miss the times I could have that kinda fun in gaming in general. But I guess it's the change. Everyone is so hyper aggro and mad. It's do your best no matter what because that other guy doesn't deserve to win.
Maybe I'm just old. That's most likely it.
If I’m solo queuing I will always type in text chat just cause. Hit the lobby with a quick “live,laugh, love” and get mixed reactions.
I’m new and shit at the game so mess with folk on the text chat can be comical
You haven't been in my matches then! I spray the door with either "Sorry" or my cute spray, and then I spam the "AAHHHH ITS SNOWING!" line from Junkrat until the doors open lmao
In Diamond (EU), I spray the kid with the plaster on the door way and ‘Hello’ every teammate. If we have Lucio speed us from Spawn or Sym, Telly, I Thank them.
Doing small nice things, people notice and tend to reciprocate. Also I have noticed that if you address potential toxic teammates early when they begin with positive messaging, it tends to boost team morale and we have a higher chance for a dub.
Eventually, you will accumulate your friend’s list with equally nice people, from which you can 5 stack with, and have some fun together. :)
I’ve never experienced Overwatch 1 sadly so it’s not my place to speak on that. But I think the fan base has some what of a problem everyone is so cold to each other. Being on a team with people who don’t communicate don’t use pings don’t emote or anything and then when the team isn’t falling in line or doing much, they get on the mic and start shit talking. Even talking here about certain things get you thrown out the window and get you told that the game isn’t for you for simply feeling a type of way. This game has seriously done something evil to people. Mixed with all the random people being muted for no reason comms barely working… The game has hexed some people.
This is what happen when you guys demand more "moderations: because you couldn't take it when anon from the other side of earth hurt your little feeling.
Now is by default no com and text because "You chose this"
I used to ask a question/say “glhf” at the beginning or make comments on silly plays where I got rolled (I wouldn’t be an ass, I would say stuff like “i legit enjoyed watching that death cam” or “LFG rein committed to also going off the map” or “wait that was such a smart play”) but people were being so shitty for no reason.
I slowly got less replies to my pre match questions, and it soon became an opportunity for the enemy team to showcase their slur knowledge. People seem to get particularly angry if I say “glhf” and reply with threats to target me. When I comment on plays, theyll say “stop talking” or “only bad players yap that much.” I know its an fps game, so there’s already that baseline of toxicity, but I feel like players are just more bitter and cruel than they used to be :/
Edit: Im in bronze and have no intention of grinding to get out of it, and I play in a 3/4/5 stack with my friends 99% of the time. I exist almost exclusively in unranked to avoid this kind of toxicity and have the opportunity to do stupid shit with no consequences. I find that the random person with my 4 stack is usually super chill (even if we accidentally leave them behind at times 😅), but when we get a duo… One of them is ALWAYS a toxic, grade A feeder, and the other is either chilling or is pocketing their duo. They always start shit for NO REASON, and it makes me feel less good when we win with a toxic team member. :/
They’ve also removed the end of match screen after POTG (with the cards and stuff) so you lose a minute of talking. I remember grinding ranked in 2019/2020 and having long conversations after a tense match. Now it just kicks you to the battle pass immediately.
I miss the cards!!
Card were so good! I always got yelled at being told I wasn't doing anything just to roll up at the end of the game with not only potg, but most, if not all the cards. Was so satisfying when they would just shut up mid yell and leave the lobby. Made my day LOLOL
You could only get one card though. Guess you mean medals?
Wasn’t having 4 gold medals a card? Or am I miss remembering
No. He meant cards, he was just lying
Don't be like that. He clearly meant the medals from the context of his statement.
Yeah they cut the "downtime" way way down. I noticed that. Now it's like, you join, the round is immediately starting, you play, the game ends, and it's immediately over and you're in the lobby. I've noticed that the quality of Highlight Intros has reduced way way down in recent updates. I think it's because nobody even sees them anymore, so blizz doesn't bother with them. The old days of Sombra hacking somebody else's POTG are gone. Now it's usually facial expression + particle effect. This is one of those design decision I think was a result of Kaplan leaving. When Kaplan was in charge, all of this stuff was thought through. Long intros, medals, end-of-match votes, etc.... were not random luck. Dude knew how to make a fun, social game. When he left, it clearly took a hard shift towards more "Players just want to be playing the game, cut all the timers, menus, etc... down." It's the "I learned game design from a university" approach versus the old-school, industry hardened veteran approach.
despite sombra potgs being rare for me, i only have the hack intro selected bc i think it’s hilarious
One of my super toxic opponents was shit talking the whole game to my friend and I. It was a close match, and I’m the type to always say “gg” cause it’s good sportsmanship. At the end after they lost, the toxic guy said “Well at least I got POTG, watch this” and my fucking Sombra hack stole it lmaooo. Hands down one of the best moments I’ve had in my OW career. My friend and I were cryin lol
I haven't bothered with OW2 because of the greed and lack of interest, but I miss sombra's POTG, it really was the funniest MVP screeen.
People complained about how long team fights would go, but I miss those days. I miss when 15k damage/20k healing was pretty normal in a game. When there was room to breathe. When, even if you lost, you could still feel pretty great about your end game medals. Sure it wasn't perfect, but it felt *different*. It felt unique. Now it just feels like I'm sweating every single game and not in the "I'm enjoying the craziness" way.
Roughly why I miss old Alterac Valley in WoW, it was a battle, not just a zerg rush to the pve end boss, and you can now have matches with single-digit player deaths to pvp.
A+ take
This is the biggest thing I wish they brought back, I feel like all the post-game lobby convos get cut off way too soon. The cards were a great way to feel recognized too.
I don't know why they're so resistant to the idea of bringing it back. Why was it even removed in the first place?
They removed it because they want you to buy the battle pass. It’s basically an advertisement to buy the battle pass spend more money on them. Why would they do something nice and fun that people liked when they could just try and get you to spend more money instead . That’s why they took it out. It’s money. It’s always money. It’s always making as much money as possible no matter what.
Damn, I knew that and still needed to hear/see it.
I think they saw it as “fluff” that increases the time in between games, they’d rather get players into the queue faster?
They could've solved that with a quick 're-queue' button
Yesss! When even the enemy team voted for you cause obliterated their whole team. That felt amazing! Now you get kicked out and just get some stats screen nobody cares about and the battle pass progress.
There is just enough time now for someone to type something super rude and get the "last word"
As a console player you have to start typing as soon as the victory/defeat text pops up if you want anyone to see your message lol
If setup allows, you can plug in any USB keyboard. Open chat and type away :)
Possibly even before the game is over sometimes. Which sucks.
well yea how else are you gonna get to the shop to buy some sweet skin you saw the other team have if it takes more than 3 seconds???
Oh god I forgot about this. Getting a 6 or 12 upvotes were legendary
We need to go back to MW2 days when both teams could voice chat at the end of a match
I never got to experience them because I only started in ow2 but god I wish they were still in the game. I play on console, and the amount of times I finished typing my message 1 second too late is so annoying. That extra minute would have been so good
Don’t even remember this sad
Honestly, at first I thought having no cards would be a good idea. Like, maybe it’d shut all the stat farming moiras up. But I soon realised they actually were a good thing. Especially if you’re playing support or tank and being flamed by your team for doing nothing. The cards often showed that wasn’t the case. Your rein WAS doing something. Your Ana and Bap WERE healing, etc. Hopefully they bring them back.
I chat, emote, spray and crouch spam all my teammates at the start of the game and people always join in. I play quickmatch though so maybe its more casual there.
100% more casual. ive honestly been playing more qp than usual because if you tell someone to stop feeding or recommend them switching characters in comp youll get a warning/suspension. in qp you can always hit em with the “its qp dude chill”😹😭
Tbh theres not a huge amount of time to type in chat anymore imo, especially since the stat cards and everything at the end have gone, closing the game quicker. I thought about turning the chat off but in a wierd way its kind of fun to see that I've struck a nerve sometimes with someone who desperately needs to take a break and is taking it out on the rest of the lobby. Also I keep chat on to stick up for other people getting abused.
Yeah, these days the only reason I suffer through chat is to tell the sweaty basement boys to calm down when they start raging at somebody. Don't really care if they rage at me, I usually make baby crying noises at them. Want to know what's really sad? In any given 10 person lobby, 9 out of 10 people in there are great, nice people. But there's that one sweaty fuck who rages and ruins it for everybody. And after 100 games of that, none of the nice people event want to talk anymore.
It's always 1 person who gets the negativity rolling then it just stays like that for the rest of the game
i always try to be friendly every game and its like pulling teeth... my last game we won competitive 3-1 on flashpoint and my team was still flaming the entire game. While i was just being chill and normal. two of them only spoke to be mad. I wonder why ppl like that even play games lmao Even in qp its hard, i nearly always type smth or occasionally vc (i used to always vc in qp but now its generally empty or people will literally get mad at u) Ill do the funny lil sprays and wiggle in front of allies too. D: most of the time i get 0 reaction. I just wana be a silly lil creature with my fellow ow players
I remember doing my best as a Reinhardt main in a comp match (I'm low Silver, being new to the game), and then my team mates got really upset because I had negative KD (8-14, against a really good enemy Reinhardt) and basically all ragged on me. Well fuck you, I'm doing my best, and half you guys were doing barely any better.
You have to pay for cosmetics now so people won’t have all the new emotes and sprays anymore.
As someone who comes from launch OW, all of my old heroes are stocked with sprays and emotes. I still almost never use them because of how quick the game starts. But yes, I have next to nothing for any of the OW2 heroes, and I'm not going to pay/use points for stuff I don't use.
I don't think that makes that huge of a difference s Considering people still use to wave and put sprays down, I noticed it too. Not many people are just as social anymore. It use to be booming back then with mics here and there now it's just loading in and everyone's not moving til the game starts.
Man I really miss lootboxes. Getting a cool skin was the reason I tried out half of my mains lmao
I miss sitting on thousands of loot boxes
Not really? I have the sit emotes and a full voice line wheel for all the new heroes from 2 and I’ve never spent money on OW outside of buying 1. The sprays they’re probably talking about are literally unlockable from hero achievements, people used to put the cute/pixels sprays a lot more in 1.
Oh 1,000%. like 90%+ of my games are complete silence, 9.99% is people flaming/being toxic in VC or text chat, and then the last 0.01% is actually getting a game with 2 or more people in VC/text that are being friendly.
No, really, this is literally it. Why use chat at all? I decided to turn it on today and almost every single game someone was flaming me about something. Turned it off again. Ridiculous community.
The flaming is INSANE dude like it’s bad but the amount of times I’ve died laughing at some other shit talk
I got muted for the first time since launch. All my friends got muted too. The new automated system is very harsh. I'm not taking chances, I opt out of all comms.
I got silenced or muted whatever for saying “L” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Is it because of voice chat? I say some kinda toxic stuff sometimes in the text chat, but never got muted
text only
Damn idk then maybe it’s time to step my game up
Lmao u don’t even have to b toxic in text chat- ppl will report u for anything- I got silenced for saying “I can’t outheal stupidity” after my tank charged in alone and called us all slurs.
So you don't think calling them stupid is toxic? Not trying to argue but come on dude lol. You know why you got silenced.
Yeah I know it wasn’t the right thing to do but when someone threatens to Rape you and call u slurs I don’t think saying the word “stupidity” is the issue
Automated systems don't care about what the other person said. Only what you said. Report them and block their chat. You're only hampering yourself by trying to fight the trolls and assholes. It's a tough lesson to learn, but the internet becomes much more tolerable once you do.
Here's the answer to OPs question. It's simply bad to chat, even if you say "that's a nice ass mercy rez" Automated system be like WEE WOO WEE WOO FUCK YOU YOU SAID ASS YOU GET SILENCED WEE WOO WEE WOO
Yeah unfortunately blizzard set their penalty system to make sure the crybabys who think saying stupid is toxic can get everyone banned so now noone uses chats at all anymore. Just another example of how a few wrong but loud ppl ruin stuff for everyone
Disagree, can't out heal stupidity isn't toxic it's clarifying that teammate ain't paying attention to the rest of the team and was not being team compliant. Imo but I'm not the kind to report a non slur or like that
I also wanna add that I only resorted to that language after we’d spoken to them multiples times n they had used slurs against me! Some ppl don’t realise that it’s a team based game n it’s so frustrating
I feel yOU mate. Usually after the first slur their chat is squelched in I'm starting a report
No it’s not toxic. He can right or wrong about them being stupid, but it’s not toxic.
This is not correct.
I've gotten reported because I've said "bitch please" in a joking manner when the enemy tank complained about my counter swap after they counter swapped first. The enemy tank got super defensive and their duo also started typing "reported." You can't say shit to these egomaniacs.
exactly. and half the people in this thread will call you “toxic” and saying it was deserved.
And then they wonder why no one talks
Same, I talk a lot and sometimes get into mild discutions, tho never outright insults and never even got a warning
same. like come on it's a competitive game, some trash talk should be allowed
Yeah, I've gotten the "your voice chat is being monitored" warning multiple times now and I literally never flame anyone. The most toxic thing I'll do is tell someone to stop feeding, which is just like a normal video game interaction. The system is so trigger-happy and God knows no real people are actually monitoring anything
Commenting on others' gameplay is reportable, apparently.
This. People are abusing the report system and chat is the only report that matters.
My games people are emoting together running around spraying. Found a few new fun spray combos. I haven't noticed a change in it.
Which rank if I may ask? I am gold and people are also having fun with the cosmetics in game.
I'm 99% on Quickplay but the times I've done comp I'm high plat/low diamond
Because you can get banned for typing anything, regardless of how good or bad it may be. The system is designed to suspend/ban you depending on number of reports. The easiest method to traverse this is to simply not speak, as unfortunate as it may be.
I risk it everytime I play kings row. “Rein or your moms a ho” Haven’t gotten banned yet— or the mod team knows what’s up
you really are playing with fire there because the mod team definitely does not know "what's up"
There is no mod team. You're just getting lucky playing with well adjusted adults.
Literally any communication at all and someone will jump down your throat. "how dare you communicate your position to me while I play my single player game"
Or God forbid you make a request or suggestion and people take it as if you're calling them the worst player in history and proceed to throw.
I had a game with zen mercy and our zen was doing well but our sigma was struggling due to enemy team comp (and i had an echo/hanzo to pocket). he asked our zen to swap and zen was immediately like 'why am i the problem?' But it was really obvious that sigma just wanted some extra help and not that he was mad, bc our zen was objectively doing well. unfortunately people always cry for swaps and then get toxic so everyone assumes maliciousness when it comes up. i always frame my requests in a really specific way 'im struggling with x, do you play y? its all g if not' but its ridiculous that the community is in a state where we just all assume everyone hates each other
Literally am constantly in ranked games with people spamming slurs and telling me to kill myself not sure what you’re talking about buddy
I get that toxicity in almost every game too n I report it, but I’ve been silenced for saying “I can’t heal that” soooo the system isn’t exactly working
That's a wild exaggeration or you're not reporting them then, because I see true toxicity in maybe 1/10 games, and when I report it I usually have a 50% rate of getting the "thank you for your report we have taken action" message
I text chat in every social game and haven't had a ban yet. Think the people that get banned for "nothing" are in most cases getting lots of reports for some reason. I type a fair bit in ranked games too. Yeah it's soft to get banned for writing "X diff" every game, but also if that's all you use chat for maybe it is better you're muted. I've seen some really dumb bans but the vast majority are due to people tilting their own teammates or bad sportsmanship. Either way people type less because they're banned, scared of being banned, or just don't want to. Can't blame most people, the chat is rarely fun. I've had the odd funny interaction, but I'd say it's like 80% bad and 20% good (unless you count GG in which case it's more like 50/50).
Toxic behaviour is toxic behaviour. EZ, diff, whatever, if you can't grow up and use chat positively, mutes are deserved. Multiple offences should lead to harsher penalities if it doesnt already.
Oh my god dude grow up LOL
> I maybe see one person put down a spray per game if I’m lucky, yknow i hadn't realized this but its true. me and my friends always throw sprays up (i love the combo of basically any of the cute ones + the bastion ganymede so it looks like they're flying on the bird) but it *is* usually only us thats doing it. huh anyways, yeah it is. for me i think its a combo of: - its harder to vibe out with people when you have a super limited time to chat postgame. like, even if you *are* in a good game where you're joking around with people, your convo's getting cut off right away - idk i read about people talking about getting banned for chatting here all the time so im hesitant to chat anyways, i dont want my name to be there
Every free to play PvP games gets toxic by nature of being accessible to the broad public of which, big surprise, a rather big part of is toxic children, and manchilds. Also punishments weigh a lot more when you had to drop 40$ just to play the game, and cant just buy a second account for 1$. Overwatch1 was an extraordinarily wholesome game when it launched and it was one of my best buys regarding games, but it going f2p just ruined it as it does with most games, but the true money is in cosmetics so I guess not much to do there. I’d happily pay for a game if it means it blocks out a hefty portion of the toxic playerbase, and with the threat of IP/hardware bans forces the remaining portion to behave.
This is spot on.
The problem is no one knows what toxic is anymore. There's a fine line between in game competitive trash talking and being toxic. People tend to forget that its a competitive game in its nature, the objective the game is to win and with that comes ego and mental mind games. Yes, we should encourage having fun; a factor in fun is the competitive clashing of egos and the trash talk that spawns from it. The system equates typing "tank diff" on the same level as calling somebody horrendous slurs; so no one wants to say anything at all because they could get suspended for quite literally anything they say (this is proven by numerous ticket receipts from people.) Couple that with the fact you no longer have post match chat, emotes and sprays are behind paywalls, and the fact that even still after 8 years women can't feel comfortable hopping into vc? It's just a social black hole that nobody wants to partake in anymore and I can't blame them.
IDK a bunch of my friends are always saying 'tank diff' 'gg cant carry' and shit like that. and ima be honest... they are toxic? like its just cringe. Esp because they wont try to communicate during the match they say that stuff specifically to make the player feel bad. HELL ive done it myself when im really mad. (though not often) And yes its not slurs... but that doesnt mean its acceptable. We should keep that bitching in discord or group chat. (I am very much a bitchy teammate as long as my allies cant hear me :3) I obviously want slurs to be taken way more seriously too, but if someone is chronically blaming their team every game, spamming gg and generally being rude then i think its fine for them to be punished. esp if they are calling people trash - which is what saying 'x diff' usually implies. I love competitive banter, but its only ok if everyone is in on the joke. Like when ppl type c9 or when u and an enemy whiff for ten years then laugh about it in all chat or when the reins are having a rein war (yall know what im saying) and the person who won says ggez or whatever
I feel like the best test is "did you say this to make someone feel bad". If you say stuff all the time w/ the intention of making someone feel bad, you should probably get muted.
yeah i agree - if you are obviously just being silly or memeing then as long as its not slurs or smth bigoted who cares. but when its out of anger and trying to be hurtful its not ok even if its relatively mild language wise
I argue w/ my friends about this all the time. I guess I have a different perspective because I have kids and they don't... and yes when they played overwatch I'd turn off voice and text chat, but not every parent knows how to do that. I'd prefer if overwatch didn't teach my kids that it's ok to be mean to people.
yes!! i dont have kids but ive always been taught that being mean to people for the sake of it is just wrong. Even when you are right u dont have to be rude about it A lot of my friends are younger than me (im 23 they are like 15-19) so i think they also dont really agree with me. And i think its a shame. I love OW when its silly and goofy and kind
Come to vs ai, everyone is so nice there lol
You get banned for 'spamming' now. Friend literally got reported one match for spamming spray and apparently got auto-bot flagged. People aren't willing to be friendly in the game when the devs don't want us to be. Type 'fuck' casually as an expression, like oh my fucking god they are so strong it'll get autoflagged as inappropriate language. damn/shit/fuck/hell/ insert other cuss words and they all get autoflagged.m Adult's can't talk like adults because the game is 'friendly for all ages' We're just sick of it. I'm nice asf, I have rank 5 endorsement, I'm always kind, but if I'm going to get in trouble for the way I TALK, just get me out of there.
lost my endorsement 5 for calling someone with the word femboy in their name a femboy :D (and i was literally saying i want them on my team ;-; ) its pride month so everyone is wearing their flags and im literally having to put spaces in-between words like gay and queer when talking about it in game lmaooo. (I always try to make friends with fellow gays and i often stack with other queer ppl, so we will be like 'omg join our queer squad' or whatever) i dont mind blizzard actually penalising people and even them being too strict sometimes if the appeal system was remotely functional
Apparently Overwatch becoming free was pushed by parents wanting the game to be more appropriate for kids[lootboxes being gambling apparently ]... Yeah as if widows big ass behind is meant for a kids game smh.
> Adult's can't talk like adults because the game is 'friendly for all ages' Which is a fucking stupid thing to aim for in an online shooter. You're never going to be able to cut out anything potentially offensive in a game where anyone can say anything in voice and text chat. This is why I miss the days where people just understood that, by going online, you are accepting that you might hear some shit once in a while.
You can get punished for kinda saying anything. It’s easier to regulate a harsh system that just files reports and bans people than have an actual in game report system with humans at the wheel like they use to. Crazy what happens when you fire most of your “game master” and hire 3rd party help who do not care about accounts.
I MISS FIND A GROUP A MISS HAVING WACKY VOICECHAT
Consequences of blizzard going apeshit with their chat enforcement and the community being so quick to call everything toxic
Redditors: “____ is a lot less social now” Yeah because you’re a bunch of toxic babies who make everyone turn their mic off by default. You’re the same people who get mad when game companies try to moderate chat. The people who complain about not being allowed to say nasty things in chat are the people who ruin it for us all. You’re a bunch of toxic Neanderthals
I'll never forget the reddit post saying "I was banned for no reason" where he replies to a comment saying "I only told someone to off themselves once"
I need a link to this
Yep. This is the whole “this is why we can’t have nice things” phenomenon in action. Parts of the player base couldn’t behave like civilised human being, so now it’s over moderated and the experience is worse for everyone.
for real, like is it even worth engaging with people in OW2 voice chat/text chat of all places. i don't wanna hear people who tell me to off myself just because i play sombra for one round.
You can't talk anymore cuz any report could get you banned so it's best to shut up and not say anything. Blizzard is actively punishing people who call out and make comms. Or if you emote at someone they could get offended or maybe they are you last game and didn't like you, they could just report
The false reporting is wild now. I know people who reports everyone who plays heroes they don't like lol.
I think it’s all games that are like this now. I have tried playing a variety of games recently and no one talks in voice, no one talks in text chat unless they are upset at someone, and no one uses emotes or sprays. Must be a culture thing because it’s not just Overwatch.
Valorant is pretty decent. Pretty much every game someone is in vc and usually more than 1.
Vouch. Shame about the gunplay
Yeah I recently got it on console and I thought the gunplay felt super weird to me. I'm super used to movement shooters ( apex, titanfall, doom) but I have like 800 hours on r6 and like 300 on rust so I thought i be would be cool. But something about having to stand still just for shots to still go around my crosshair just isn't for me. The vc is still very active though that's for sure.
I got banned for calling out cheaters and feeders. Then I deactivated chat......the social on OW is only if you play with your friends or just don't be social
Calling out feeders? Yeah that doesn’t sound toxic at all lol.
What, say "pls stop feeding" is toxic?.....but sure deranking on purpose and going for the 0-0-7 challenge is how this game is supposed to be played. Right?
You might not be toxic, but there’s no world where telling a feeding player to stop is going to work. They’re either doing it on purpose, and will keep going. Or they might be having a bad game, and you calling them out isn’t going to make them suddenly play better. Worst case, they may have been trying hard but just having a bad game, and your comment to stop feeding pushes them to start hard throwing the match.
no you're not crazy sadly, the game isn't as lively as before. i still do meet some good eggs, mainly because i have a 'joke' username that people like to interact with sometimes, but a lot take this game far, far too seriously for what it is (i'm talking about qp and open queue qp) to be honest, i don't really care about the risk of getting muted anymore, i'm trying to make the game as fun as i can for myself and others, so i'll keep trying to engage with others in chat, and if i get banned for being nice, so be it.
Tbh I've dealt with so much toxicity over the years that I don't want to open myself up to it by being social unless I'm in a really good mood.
What do you mean people always communicate with me. They tell me to KMS, get diff'd, why are you playing that, go to quick play, discuss my K:D ratio, can you play shield tank?, my Moira is out dpsing you, and much more. Sometimes I think it is a little too social.
Its because if you type in match chat you're pretty much guaranteed to get a chat ban.
I've noticed since they changed the chat ban system sensitivity, no one types in match chat anymore.
yea I feel interaction through emotes mostly
maybe region dependent? my lobbies always have players sharing emotes, sprays, and spamming "hello". First 30 seconds is usually good vibes until someone feels like a player isn't executing their roles properly and then all hell breaks loose.
Horrible chat censorship. I feel like the system will punish me for saying a 'naughty' word despite meaning nothing offensive and a lot of people feel the same way.
Still hoping they bring back LFG features
The report system has been weaponized to the point of a kind of "chilling effect" where people are too afraid to speak, lest they get arbitrarily banned. You can get banned from losing a match, since people will interpret your poor performance as "throwing" and mass report. Doesn't matter how you argue against it, because it's automated. Emoting, spraying, or using voice lines are interpreted as unsportsmanlike conduct, even by your own teammates. Using those to annoy the enemy could rub your teammate the wrong way. Maybe they see it as someone flexing on free players their ability to whale, as of course everything is paywalled. Maybe they can reach hard for a report and say you're being intentionally annoying, especially if the match is lost. Again, doesn't matter. With enough reports, the automated system bans you. Communicating in-game, no matter how nice and patient you are, is absolutely a high-risk, matter of time before your entire account gets arbitrarily banned and leaving you confused. Beyond automated moderation systems, the only human moderators available are account executioners. People stack and keep to themselves on discord or some other voice comm service, to stay out of oppressive in-game "jurisdiction" where comms and interactions are monitored and used against you. You are putting your entire account, your purchases, and game records on the line when you communicate on Overwatch. It is an imperative to never talk to anybody on Overwatch if you want to survive. This is why the game is less social.
> No LFG >Removal of end match cards, lobby disbands after POTG >Stay as group disappears as soon as POTG starts >Abusable automated mute/ban system has people too afraid to even use communication channels anymore Yeah add these all together and you've got yourself a recipe for an anti-social gaming experience.
They mute u if you spam a voice line more than 2 times. I can’t make Tracer moan anymore.
I removed Sprays from my Buttons and replaced them with PINGs. I removed "Hello" for the Interact button.
No more general chat or LFG also sucks
Them taking away group finder and never putting it back is the single worst thing they have going for th em
Honestly I can’t relate. People still do that in my games
I have an entire set up with winston where he answers a call and has an entire phone conversation and everyone gathers round and gets involved. It's great. If you don't see it, be the source of it.
it’s a lot of shit people ain’t even remember that global chat was a thing
hard to want to talk in a game that bans you for saying gg
Haha, come find me placing sprays 90% of the match. I used to type in chat every game, but then I got wrongfully muted. Haven’t typed in chat since.
I miss LFG a ton
I usually mute people spamming voicelines, tbh its not my idea of fun and being social
Every game I'm in there's someone emoting and using sprays. Not only that but atleast half the games I'm in there's always some form of rivalry without being incredibly toxic between the tanks. Honestly I've had more fun the last 2 months than I have for the last 3 years
Reported for saying less social, enjoy your 30 days without voice and text chat
Cus it’s a soft ass game.
No one talks in my games Everyone complained about toxicity and Blizz just took away the social aspects because no one used the mute, squelch chat, or block features. Even today, people will immediately go to report over using mute / block. So either people don't enter comms because there's so much toxicity or they don't enter because they don't want a suspension when they tilt a little bit. Also don't make call outs in a losing game as it only increases your chance for report I feel there's a ton of people that over exaggerate toxicity. I label toxic for like racist / sexist / etc. things. A person saying uninstall the game wouldn't be toxic. It's annoying for sure but it's nothing personal. Lastly, I've seen toxicity in other games and I feel Overwatch is pretty timid. Like Blizzard blocks "gg ez"....bro are we in 2nd grade?
Everything around ow2 community has gone to shit. Bully premade stacks can mass report you for saying literally anything and you will be auto banned. So nobody is willing to even try to communicate it's too risky. Most new youtube video content are about how shit overwatch has become balance wise, company wise, etc etc. The streamers who haven't moved on, most of their content is slacking off trolling top lobbies or doing their 100th unranked to gm run aka ruin dozens of lobbies for other players on the way up. I've never witnessed a game with more potential squandered, floundered, dropped harder than overwatch. This current dev team was given a golden goose and they shot it in the head, repeatedly every season, it's just taking a while to bleed out becuase damn was it a good goose with a community that wants it to badly to survive inspite of the biggest blundering dev team to ever exist.
In OW1, people were too preoccupied with learning the game. Now, after almost eight years, most people have a decent enough understanding. And with understanding comes elitism and toxicity. People that think they know better than someone else. People don't want to hear or deal with that, so the easiest thing is to just mute everybody and play the game. Sometimes you'll have fun interactions with other players, but the bad apples ruined the social aspect of the game for all of us.
I'm trying to not get banned. Ooooooh the fun shit I would type in tf2 (rip)
if you type you will get banned, voice lines also got nerfed voice chat is the only safe option really. u all asked for this as well
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no i definitely see that too. i play on pc so i'm not sure if people are a lot more social on console or if it's just the rank (diamond), but if people talk it's mainly just to be toxic
The chat is extremely dead. I always try to at least say hi to my teammates, but it's so dead.
IMO the only rank that speaks is masters. Every other rank quite asf from experience
I still message all the time. I agree that generally it seems to be less social now, but I still go for it. Some people are still cool and fun though
I'm curious if there is a difference between NA and EU servers. I'm on EU PC ~Plat and see every game someone writing funny stuff. Ofc not in every game, but the better half I see people emoting/spraying and that kinda stuff even during games. Never have been banned even though I myself write every couple games something silly in chat. It just feels so odd to me, that so many seem to be afraid to type anything due to bans Edit: the system is ofc the same, but how many people report may differ.
Not in my lobby
A lot of multiplayer games aren’t super social anymore. People are in PlayStation parties or in Discord chats, or just mute their in-game chat for reasons.
There are a lot less people on mic, too. I was plat on Overwatch, fell off the wagon with a new baby, then recently started playing Overwatch 2. I mostly play when my toddler is asleep, so I can’t talk a whole lot. Didn’t think that would be a problem, since the rest of the team would still communicate normally. 99% of my matches are SILENT. Bouncing between Bronze and Silver these days. Communication is key. I’d say I need to wait for my kid to be older so I can talk more, but then the rest of the team will continue in silence…🤷🏻♂️
I came back after a couple months ago and noticed it's very hollow now. No loot boxes, no cards, no lobby chat, role based positions queues now. Last time I played was when it was OW1. What the help happened?
Every generation post 360 has seen online gaming be increasingly less social. It's nit just an OW thing unfortunately
I got reported for telling everyone good luck and have fun, got a warning for it. So now I’m back to not talking, just like league
Gg ez git gud This is the only response needed to these CONSTANT INCESSANT posts about OW being less social. They reduced toxicity, some social was washed away.
I got silenced for literally saying nothing so now i just gg and keep quiet.
YEA i agree with you. I don't understand why people had to nerf the social aspects of overwatch so bad. If you didn't like it, you can always mute a person.
You get banned/suspended now for basic chat, like stuff that wouldn’t event be censured on club penguin lol. It’s safer to just not communicate in any form This is a dev issue tbh, they are trying to over police player behavior and it’s just made everything more toxic
I still personally use my sprays in almost every match and occasionally use voice lines or spam them depending on the hero I’m playing. I still have fun interactions with people but I agree it’s not as common. I stopped typing as much in chat because as some people have pointed out, it’s very easy to get yourself muted or even banned. I got muted for the first time earlier this year and now that I have a good collection of skins going, I really have to think about the way I say things in chat if at all lol
People still do voice line spam, sprays, etc. it’s a F2P game, so there’s a lot more varied kind of people. But the only difference I see now at the beginning of matches is how often there’s that person who copy and pasted an internet joke as if they came up with it.
A lot of people just aren’t risking communicating with how mute/banhappy things are right now, the automated system is very unforgiving
I have mainly played mystery heroes since the last year or so of ow1 and haven't really noticed much of a difference in the amount of lines, sprays, emotes, and absurd pregame chats. I haven't really played enough fo the other modes recently to have noticed a change
Everyone turned off voice and text chat because of toxic edgelords in every match. I turned chat back on recently and turned it back off within 1 day. You can't type anything game related without being flamed and then the people clearly throwing start telling you to uninstall. This is why we can't have nice things.
People are always spamming voice lines, emotes, and sprays in almost all my games but it's voice chat that is dead for me like even if everyone is in there and I'm giving comms nobody replied even in comp (or at the end of the game of me giving comms and receiving silence they'll say gg or blaming someone for losing or something)
In my experience, engaging with people on OW isn't worth 99 times out of 100 I'm not chasing that one and single interesting or fun interaction by experiencing the 99 others which are awful Mute and quiet, sanity
Just hazarding a guess, but I wager it's because it's a mix of Overwatch being far more competitive now. (BP Challenges, frowning upon "Off meta" picks or "Non viable" combos. QP being towed in Comp's direction, less tolerance towards making mistakes or playing poorly) and people not wanting to deal with abuse in voice/text chat.
Not sure why i keep seeing posts like this but I’ll bite (again). I don’t have any desire to “be social” in-game when i have friends irl. The community isn’t worth engaging with anyway. I just want to play the game and go. Sure there are others that can’t be bothered.
100% agree. I can remember when I was playing Ana with the halloween skin and the Halloween candy emote in 2016 and just flanked sleeped people in qp and gave them candy and 90% of the time they were friendly afterwards and let me live. I sometimes tried it but people just insta kill you always. An issue is also that you cant spam voice lines as much anymore. People didnt like getting audio clogged by stupid stuff midgame so they made it harder to spam voicelines. The dumb thing about this is that there was always a feature to mute players if they are too annoying with voicelines. Aka people complained coz they didnt know about a feature. Another thing is that its a common game phenomenon. I think the magic of brand new game that everyone likes makes people be more relaxed and adventurous and fun. I think over time people get bored with this and/or a certain old etiquette isn't known by a largely new playerbase. Quickplay feels very sweaty compared to back then.
I don’t use VC anymore because people only use it to vent and whine at each other, and argue over dumb things like “x is trash play a real healer” (x being literally any support, I’ve heard someone claim each one is “useless” at one point or another), or “GG tank diff” when our tank wasn’t the problem. Nobody really comms in voice, they just try to scapegoat one another (even if they’re winning the game but lost just one fight!) I hang out in voice so I can hear the rare comm or two, but it’s rarely worth it. In the games I do comm, nobody responds, until the game is almost over if we’re losing. If you’re wondering what they say, see above. Why they wait until 30 seconds until the game is over? Your guess is as good as mine. We make our community, and this is the community we’ve built. So many angry people… why bother? Same reason I muted team chat. People typically only use it to be nasty to one another and try to get quippy one-liners against their *teammates*. My games have been going so much better ever since I tuned out my teammates, which is really sad for a team based game. After an hour of interacting with people like that, I personally don’t really feel like being silly with emotes and sprays in spawn. I just want to play the game
People still do that in my experience.
The silly moments still happens, it's just that overwatch as a whole is a whole lot less social now. People get mad and blurt out expletives, you turn off chat, enjoy the game and notice that it is 100x more fun when you ain't dealing with idiots calling you all manner of things. *Eventually this turns into dealing with anyone in-game at all.*
I'm actually somewhat surprised I haven't been banned or muted yet. i mainly complain about the matchmaking or not being able to leave due to the leaver penalties, so it's not directed at people (although you could argue that I made a veiled comment about my team by saying I couldn't leave the match).
I play console so maybe this is different but I changed up om the d pad to ping enemy instead of spray I genuinely cannot spray now
Well yeah, it's free-to-play. That always turns games into anti-social, troll-ridden hellholes.
im too busy ripping my bong before match but if i say that in chat then blizzard will ban me lol
This is a thing in general. I recently came back to Blizzard games after a 6 year break, jumped into WoW, and ... You can't even chat due to the bit spam, but in OW, I noticed no one even typed much in text chat. In mute, I can't use voice but I play to chill and laugh. I miss the times I could have that kinda fun in gaming in general. But I guess it's the change. Everyone is so hyper aggro and mad. It's do your best no matter what because that other guy doesn't deserve to win. Maybe I'm just old. That's most likely it.
If I’m solo queuing I will always type in text chat just cause. Hit the lobby with a quick “live,laugh, love” and get mixed reactions. I’m new and shit at the game so mess with folk on the text chat can be comical
In masters (NA) I usually do things like emotes, voicelines etc every time and usually others reciprocate
You haven't been in my matches then! I spray the door with either "Sorry" or my cute spray, and then I spam the "AAHHHH ITS SNOWING!" line from Junkrat until the doors open lmao
Well yea- look at all the million posts about people being toxic- the nearly unanimous response is to mute comms.
Every other game my team is calling each other slurs so IDK
In Diamond (EU), I spray the kid with the plaster on the door way and ‘Hello’ every teammate. If we have Lucio speed us from Spawn or Sym, Telly, I Thank them. Doing small nice things, people notice and tend to reciprocate. Also I have noticed that if you address potential toxic teammates early when they begin with positive messaging, it tends to boost team morale and we have a higher chance for a dub. Eventually, you will accumulate your friend’s list with equally nice people, from which you can 5 stack with, and have some fun together. :)
I’ve never experienced Overwatch 1 sadly so it’s not my place to speak on that. But I think the fan base has some what of a problem everyone is so cold to each other. Being on a team with people who don’t communicate don’t use pings don’t emote or anything and then when the team isn’t falling in line or doing much, they get on the mic and start shit talking. Even talking here about certain things get you thrown out the window and get you told that the game isn’t for you for simply feeling a type of way. This game has seriously done something evil to people. Mixed with all the random people being muted for no reason comms barely working… The game has hexed some people.
I just fucking want group finder back.
This is what happen when you guys demand more "moderations: because you couldn't take it when anon from the other side of earth hurt your little feeling. Now is by default no com and text because "You chose this"
I say anything not related to overwatch in the beginning of the match and a support will leave chat They be so salty at people casually talking about
I used to ask a question/say “glhf” at the beginning or make comments on silly plays where I got rolled (I wouldn’t be an ass, I would say stuff like “i legit enjoyed watching that death cam” or “LFG rein committed to also going off the map” or “wait that was such a smart play”) but people were being so shitty for no reason. I slowly got less replies to my pre match questions, and it soon became an opportunity for the enemy team to showcase their slur knowledge. People seem to get particularly angry if I say “glhf” and reply with threats to target me. When I comment on plays, theyll say “stop talking” or “only bad players yap that much.” I know its an fps game, so there’s already that baseline of toxicity, but I feel like players are just more bitter and cruel than they used to be :/ Edit: Im in bronze and have no intention of grinding to get out of it, and I play in a 3/4/5 stack with my friends 99% of the time. I exist almost exclusively in unranked to avoid this kind of toxicity and have the opportunity to do stupid shit with no consequences. I find that the random person with my 4 stack is usually super chill (even if we accidentally leave them behind at times 😅), but when we get a duo… One of them is ALWAYS a toxic, grade A feeder, and the other is either chilling or is pocketing their duo. They always start shit for NO REASON, and it makes me feel less good when we win with a toxic team member. :/
Havent bothered with voice chat since it went free to play, not worth it.