Overwatch Toxicity Dramatically Reduced Thanks To New Social Feature Changes
There’s no denying the amount of abusive chat and toxic behavior in competitive games to the point it almost seems to go hand-in-hand with them. Even though a gamer’s personality and forethought has much to do with their behavior toward others, it quickly becomes a rampant trend that takes the fun away from folks just looking to have a good time. However, developers like Blizzard are determined to make it a better place, especially for the betterment of the Overwatch community.
As a matter of fact, game director and Blizzard vice president, Jeff Kaplan, shares positive news on that front, relaying statistics on significantly decreased levels of abusive chat in-game. The team recently implemented new social features in LFG (Looking For Groups) and post-game Endorsements not unlike League of Legends Honor system. Instead, the three categories – shot caller, good teammate, and sportsmanship – may reflect to the player’s attitude throughout the match and it’s up to their team members to show appreciation!
Rewarding folks with endorsements will increase their endorsement level and drives incentive to maintain the reputation. There have been improvements in daily and an overall decline in abusive chat and toxic behavior. Here are the latest statistics and improvements, according to Kaplan:
The % of Competitive Matches that Contain Abusive Chat is down
- 26.4% in the Americas
16.4% in KR
The % of Daily Players being Abusive is down
- 28.8% in the Americas
21.6% in KR
Most notably, the statistics for such regions as EU, Russia, China and others were not shared. With this, Kaplan clarified that information on Korea and the Americas were readily available and the team was excited to share the prospects the new social features have had in such a short amount of time. Soon, Kaplan and company will reveal a more extensive list that spans several other servers.
It seems Blizzard’s determination to improve the Overwatch community’s reputation for rotten behavior has worked out for the better and will likely continue that way. In fact, the team plans on making quality of life changes to the LFG feature shortly. With the upcoming patch, the system will “persist your filters across logins.”
Overall, it’s a good day for Overwatch! What do you think of the new social features the developers implemented for the game? Have you been readily utilizing the endorsement and LFG systems? Let us know what you think in the comments section below or start a conversation on DFTG Facebook page. To stay up to date on gaming news as it happens, follow us on Twitter! Here’s some of our latest:
Hoi Duong2131 Posts
Hoi is an elusive figure at DFTG, whose favorite past-times include chillin' in the Fade, reading manga, watching anime, collecting novelty items, and gaming.
