Blizzard: Overwatch development is slowed by fighting toxic players

[AndrewEB]

https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/14/16306744/overwatch-banning-toxic-players-new-maps-characters

Honestly, the correlation between the two does make sense to believe that the toxicity is what's causing the slowed development on Overwatch updates.

After all, considering the toxicity that competition based games like MOBA's, CoD, Overwatch, and more is known for (watchmojo, while not reliable did do a ranking on the top 10 most toxic gaming communities, and Overwatch was not listed).

It may have been out of the blue, but it seems that there has been a few articles the past while about Blizzard's ongoing battle with the toxicity within overwatch.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-08-28-blizzard-lays-down-the-law-on-overwatch-toxic-behaviour

https://dvsgaming.org/blizzard-to-fix-overwatchs-toxic-community/

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Catfood220]

Can't say I've come across that much toxicity myself, but then I don't play competitive. Plus I discovered the slider in options menu that mutes all mic chatter, so they could be saying anything they want about me and I don't know or care. The levels of toxicity coming from my mouth though can sometimes be quite high, but to be fair, I don't use a mic either so it never goes any further than that.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist though, I watch a lot of Overwatch player FTKCOMPUTER on youtube and some of the stuff in his videos is quite unpleasant. I'll post a couple of his vids when I'm not using my phone.

 

[Saelune]

Its slowing them down because they are addressing it. Games like CoD and Dota dont seem to care about toxic players, while Overwatch does.

 

[Bobular]

I don't think I've noticed any toxic behaviour since the very start when it was everywhere with people telling others not to play certain classes or yelling at them for being noobs or something. These days I'll just see someone complain "this team" or something just before the game ends at most.

I did have a guy yell at me yesterday for using Reaper's ult at the wrong time, but he was on the other team and was more joking about how stupid it was and I agreed with him[footnote]I dropped in on a big group of enemies just as the last one died to someone else, meaning that I was just spinning around in a circle shooting at already dead corpses for all to see.[/footnote].

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Toxicity is a natural by-product of games where it is necessary to cooperate with others (particularly strangers) to be successful. Not saying that's a good thing, just that I don't think you can avoid it. When the fate of a game isn't entirely in your own hands it can be frustrating to play through. Take a game of League of Legends. If 1 or 2 teammates are either playing poorly or trolling you are stuck in that game for at least 20min when you are allowed to call a surrender vote- and even then if you don't get 4 out 5 people voting in favor you might be in a game that you're slowly losing and having very little fun in for 45min or even an hour. That's going to breed resentment in nearly anyone. I admit I've been toxic before when I've gotten frustrated at what amounts to a waste of the little time I have to be playing games in the first place.

This is why I never play ranked even in competitive games. I play video games to relax and have fun, not worry about my ranking and get yelled at and have either my race or sexual orientation questioned (or both). I don't need that kind of stress in my life. As far as Overwatch is concerned, an audience that large is bound to have its fair share of toxic players. I really don't see how Blizzard can squash it completely or even to a large degree. I also bristle a little when I head about Blizz mass banning "toxic" players. What exactly classifies as too toxic? If we're talking about racial slurs, harassment, and other things I kind of get it, but it doesn't sit right with me as a consumer to know that pappa Blizzard can just take the game I paid good money for away whenever they decide to.* I know that's what those EULAs are for and maybe I'm just being old fashioned. This is just the reality of digital goods.



*I don't actually own or play Overwatch just illustrating my point*

 

[felbot]

Sounds like a shit excuse to me, fairly sure they have moderators to sift through reports made by players or chat logs or whatever they look at. seems like a really stupid idea to have the dev team sorting through that stuff when they could be making more content for the game. But then again this is the same company that released diablo 3 and Warlords of draenor so who knows maybe they really are that stupid.

 

[sXeth]

Sounds like a flimsy excuse.

I'm reasonably sure that artists, programmers, and so on have a fairly limited contribution to game admin and community management. This isn't some indie project or community server where 4 or 5 people are juggling jobs, its fullscale corporate development with departments and divisions.

Like, at most they might have the programming team adding some tracking features or reporting mechanisms. That wouldn't have anything to do with producing video shorts at all, lol.

If I was a speculative sort, I'd guess they slowed down because Blizzard's been doing stuff for the Destiny 2 PC version, but they won't shoot themselves in the foot by blaming one of their publishers other games for delays on their rabid fanboy franchise.

 

[Catfood220]

I did have a guy yell at me yesterday for using Reaper's ult at the wrong time, but he was on the other team and was more joking about how stupid it was and I agreed with him[footnote]I dropped in on a big group of enemies just as the last one died to someone else, meaning that I was just spinning around in a circle shooting at already dead corpses for all to see.[/footnote].

That's almost as good as the one I did few weeks ago. Playing as D.Va, the enemy has the point and I have a fully charged ult. This is my chance to be a hero, to swing things in our favour. I hit the rockets, hit the ult and watch helplessly as my mech flies past every single enemy, down a hole and explodes harmlessly on the floor below. I just kind of sat there and thought "I deserve every bit of shit I get for that".

 

[meiam]

Is it really that toxic? I haven't played in a few months, but when I did I very rarely saw/heard anything that could be considered toxic? Say maybe 1% of games, if not less.

I'd love to see some statistic about toxicity versus player rank, I wouldn't be surprised if toxicity was just mostly concentrated at certain skill rank (I'd wager toward the bottom of the skill ladder is the most toxic part).

Although, honestly after playing thousands of moba game (across LoL, HoTS, Smite, that EA one, paragon ect.) I found that the toxicity complain are way overblown, 50% of games no one even use the chat function and, again, around 1-2% of games have sign of toxicity. Honestly I think the people who complain the loudest about toxicity are the toxic player themselves, most of the time things escalate starting from rather mundane things. So say someone will ask "why didn't you push this lane?" and the other player will immediately start using insult and such and things will escalate, then both player will leave thinking that the community is toxic and that its not there fault. Then (specifically the second player in that example) will then go on to repeat that behavior with similar results and so from there point of view almost every game they play will be toxic. But for the vast majority of people who don't get aggressive for everything, char is very tame and they don't run into trouble.

 

[Avnger]

around 1-2% of games have sign of toxicity.

Well let's look at this percentage though. Steam charts says that DOTA 2's average players at any given moment is 532,012.4; divide this by 8 players per team and we get 66501.55 matches any any given time. If 1% of those matches contains toxic behavior, we're still looking at 665 toxic matches occurring at any given time. Multiply back up by the 8 players per match and we're left with 5320.124 players who are encountering that toxic behavior, again, at any given time. That's a damn lot of people running into this behavior. If each match runs for ~40 minutes, we're looking at 191,524.464 encounters of toxic behavior per day.

 

[Redryhno]

Its slowing them down because they are addressing it. Games like CoD and Dota dont seem to care about toxic players, while Overwatch does.

Eh, that's sorta because people have accepted that the internet has its fair share of asshats and as such, the communities evolved to largely be isolated pockets of friends and confidants. Everyone else is just someone you're playing a game with, mute the asshats and play the game, nothing else really matters. Less not caring, and more "this is as it is".

But Blizzard sorta made it a community-focused game to start off with and didn't seem to notice that the internet can be a dark and uncomforting place. Add in that the game is largely marketed and modeled for a younger audience, an audience that has a pretty large way to go before understanding that people other than themselves exist as a general rule, and you've got Overwatch.

Not that I'm going to fully buy that their biggest and most acclaimed release in years only has enough staff to either make content or regulate communication, but they sorta brought it on themselves with their approach.

 

[happyninja42]

Toxicity is a natural by-product of games where it is necessary to cooperate with others (particularly strangers) to be successful.

I disagree with this point, and argue that the toxicity is a natural by-product of competitive games, not cooperative. And I think that's an important distinction. I've played lots of online games, from MMO's to shooters to whatever, and in my personal experience (yes, I can only speak for myself, but I have been playing them for 20+ years), games that focus on pitting players against each other, tend to have a higher frequency of toxic behavior, than say games like, Payday 2, or the multiplayer in Mass Effect, etc.

I think it's an issue of potentially feeling like you are being embarrassed in front of the enemy players when they kill you, for something you feel isn't your fault. "If the stupid Medic had healed me I'd be fine!" kind of reaction. There is a feeling of belittlement from losing, for whatever reason, and a desire to redirect that blame to an outside source. And this is amplified, if there is an audience (the enemy team), that is by design, set up to be antagonistic to you.

But in games where it's just you and your allies, against a bunch of AI controlled bots, there's far less conflict. It's not 100% gone sure, but I find from my own experience, that players are WAY more laid back, and willing to forgive fuck ups by their teammates, when they are the only humans involved. There's no threat of being shit talked in the post-game chat between teams, etc.

I've asked others over the years if they've noticed a similar trend, in cooperative vs competitive, and while it's far from an objective, peer reviewed study, pretty much everyone I asked seemed to agree that they noticed a distinct reduction in toxicity in coop games.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

General douchebaggery. Either you have a basic level of sportmanship or they will enforce it for you.

Personally I would have online referees make this into a gameplay mechanic. Get too foyl mouthed or grief and you get to go into an ingame penalty box in the middle of the arena as the team goes into a powerplay

 

[Fijiman]

So I guess that means that the console versions will get updates even slower than they already do? Well I can't play Overwatch right now anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.

 

[Deadguy2322]

Blizzard is so transparently full of bullshit, it?s hilarious.

 

[Parrikle]

It seems like a fair call. If the game is to continue to succeed, retaining an enjoyable gaming environment is important. New features are always nice, but if the game ceases to be fun because of how people act within it, then people are just going to walk away. It doesn't take much for an otherwise enjoyable round to be destroyed because of some idiot abusing the other players.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

To me it sounds like they're focusing on the wrong things, or just blaming their ''slow'' development off the game on its community. Take your pick.

 

[bjj hero]

Toxicity is a natural by-product of games where it is necessary to cooperate with others (particularly strangers) to be successful. Not saying that's a good thing, just that I don't think you can avoid it. When the fate of a game isn't entirely in your own hands it can be frustrating to play through. Take a game of League of Legends. If 1 or 2 teammates are either playing poorly or trolling you are stuck in that game for at least 20min when you are allowed to call a surrender vote- and even then if you don't get 4 out 5 people voting in favor you might be in a game that you're slowly losing and having very little fun in for 45min or even an hour. That's going to breed resentment in nearly anyone. I admit I've been toxic before when I've gotten frustrated at what amounts to a waste of the little time I have to be playing games in the first place.

This is why I never play ranked even in competitive games. I play video games to relax and have fun, not worry about my ranking and get yelled at and have either my race or sexual orientation questioned (or both). I don't need that kind of stress in my life. As far as Overwatch is concerned, an audience that large is bound to have its fair share of toxic players. I really don't see how Blizzard can squash it completely or even to a large degree. I also bristle a little when I head about Blizz mass banning "toxic" players. What exactly classifies as too toxic? If we're talking about racial slurs, harassment, and other things I kind of get it, but it doesn't sit right with me as a consumer to know that pappa Blizzard can just take the game I paid good money for away whenever they decide to.* I know that's what those EULAs are for and maybe I'm just being old fashioned. This is just the reality of digital goods.



*I don't actually own or play Overwatch just illustrating my point*

I used to play a lot of overwatch but Ive got no access to play anything but heathstone at the moment.

I think its more the competitive aspect rather than the cooperation, shared with feeling untouchable because you are behind a screen that makes someone toxic. Its far less common in the street or at actual real sports where you are within punching distance.

Look at recent events with Pewdeepie playing PUbattlegrounds and dropping the N bomb on live stream. Thats not a coop game, it is straight deathmatch.

 

[The Lunatic]

Sounds like an excuse.

It's really not particularly difficult to add a "Mute all" Button, and such a thing would solve basically every problem you can think of, beyond people being too sensitive or demanding extremely specific ways of interacting with other players.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I personally haven't had much of an issue with toxicity in Overwatch...but maybe that's because I'm on the PS4, where most players don't have/don't use mics. I also don't play competitive mode, where most of these issues tend to crop up.

Try as Blizzard might, I think it's a Sisyphean task. After all, the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is still in full effect:

The way I see it, the only way you could truly stamp out toxicity is to implement strong authoritarian measures like requiring real names and identities instead of pseudonyms and round-the-clock monitoring...but I'll be damned if we go down that Orwellian rabbit hole. It's the age-old "freedom vs. security" dilemma. You can have all of one or a little of each, but never all of both.

Besides, there are already plenty of tools to deal with this problem in the game, including muting, reporting and disabling chat altogether. They're there for a reason. Use them. I doubt you're going to miss out on valuable team communication by muting some asshole screaming about how he fucked your mom.

"I've said mean things on the internet."
-Jeff Kaplan

...And he ain't lyin'. The following rant is from his days as an EverQuest player:

"Whoever came up with this sheer fisting of an encounter can go fuck themselves. Do me a favor so I don't waste my guild's time on this kind of jackass shit-fest again, send me an email at [email protected] when you decide to A) Implement an encounter that wasn't designed by a retarded chimp chained to a cubicle A.)Get a Quality Assuarance Department C) Actually beta test the fucking thing and D) Patch it live. And please for god's sake -- do it in the order I laid out for you. Don't worry, I won't charge you a consulting fee on that one. And for good luck you might as well E) Pull your heads out of your asses. While you're at it rename the game to BetaQuest since you've used up you're alotted false advertising karma on the Bazaar and user interface scam of '01.Fix the Emperor encounter. Fix Seru. Rethink your time-sink bullshit. Fix all the buggy motherfucking ring encounters (I suggest you let whoever made the Burrower one do this since that dude apparently laid off the crack the rest of you were smoking). Fix the VT key quest. Fix VT (just guessing it's fucked up considering your track record). Don't have the resources to fix this stuff? Move the ENTIRE Planes of Power team over to fixing Shadows of Luclin AND DO IT NOW. If you don't fix Luclin, you jackassess will be the only ones playing the Planes of Power."

-Jeff "Tigole Bitties" Kaplan

http://web.archive.org/web/20090608034937/http://www.legacyofsteel.net/oldsite/arc27.html

I guess people really can change...