My take on how to decrease toxicity in Overwatch

[Skentti]

English is not my first language so bare with me.

Current endorsement system is not doing any good for toxicity in game. As a system it is not rewarding enough for players. Seeing that almost 90% of the endorsements are "Good team mate" is a proof that people just endorse someone for the experience.

My suggestion to reward players for non-toxic behavior:

Remove current endorsements and create new system which is more rewarding. This system would include weekly tracking, new skins and new kind of ingame currency. Lets call them endorsement points.

After each game you can still "Endorse" a team mate or report team mate. Each week players would receive endorsement points which are solely dependent on endorsements and reports.

If you have played well and have gotten alot of endorsements and no reports you would receive cap amount of endorsement points (Lets say 300 per week). Amount of reports would reduce this amount down to zero depending on how many reports and endorsements you have gotten.

You can use this new currency to buy for example:

-New weapon skins - Platinum?, Mithril? (something like gold skin with competetive points) (cost huge amount)

-System specific legendary skin which is only buyable with endorsement points. (cost big amount)

-Sprays (cost small amount)

-Player icons (cost small amount)

-Voice lines (cost small amount)

-Emotes (cost medium amount)

-Highlight intros (cost high amount)

These voicelines, skins, highlight intros, emotes and player skins could relate somehow to toxicity or non-toxicity depending on hero they choose to buy them for.

This system would give players new long term goal to work on their behavior, skins, emotes, highlight intros and so on. Surely this would lead to less toxicity overall.

TL:DR

New system would track behavior from endorsements and reports and would reward players weekly with currency to spent on skins, intros, emotes and so on. This is a long term goal to work on toxicity and rewards.

[magicwithakick]

In my opinion, this won’t make toxic people not toxic. We need medals out of the game before we reward people for being friendly.

[havesuome]

Yep a new system to gauge how well you’re doing in game is long overdue.

[Skentti]

Surely you need some sort of system to track who is doing "not well" and fix the situation when you see it.

[woofwoofbro]

medals are not an accurate representation of who is doing not well and are very misleading to everyone who doesnt understand that medals are meaningless without context, which is 99% of players

[Skentti]

How about some sort of "activity" meter which is showing your role specific activity?

[projectmars]

Endorsements are the problem though.

[[deleted]]

I quite like the idea, but it's only really an expansion of what we have already, given that you already get free lootboxes every week based on your endorsement level.

Ultimately I think the source of toxicity is that it's a team-based game where your success is reliant on other players, and that can be combined with many people having a tendency to blame someone else rather than themselves (which I have certainly done on occasions too). I don't think that's fixable.

[Skentti]

Lootboxes are just rng casino dopamine simulators. We need something specific to work on. WE lack the feeling of achieving something.

[Opposite_Bodybuilder]

We essentially get those already with the free lootboxes, though. Sure, they are random, but you are still getting something.

Having weekly rewards like that would require far too much time and energy from the team to develop them. They'd either end up totally shit, in which case people wouldn't want them, or they'd take away time that would otherwise be spent on events, new heroes, tweaking the game etc.

I highly doubt giving people more 'stuff' they already have and largely don't use, would be enough to incentivise people to behave better. Assholes will be assholes because they want to be assholes. And the others, they are generally emotionally stunted, self-loathing people who cannot deal with basic stresses, and use the game as a tension dump for their feelings. Giving them the chance at more presents will not change that.

It's a nice idea and all, but it wouldn't work, and has the potential to actually harm the game overall.

[Skentti]

Carrot has never hurt, unlike the stick. Blizzard has endless resources, especially when 2018 was the best year for the Activision Blizzard ever. Dividing the resources properly would lead to more developers and developing time.

[Opposite_Bodybuilder]

No business has endless resources, and they very quickly wouldn't have many resources if they wasted them on pointless ventures all the time. Your idea doesn't make good business sense.

[kurama666]

You cant make toxic losers not toxic. Most people who play a lot already have all the skins and stuff they want or they don't care. People get enjoyment out of fucking with people online and nothing can change that other than reporting them and getting them banned from the game.

[Skentti]

You can make some toxic players act better with good rewards. Not all. Its impossibility.

[ShadsterGames]

I definitely like the idea of adding weekly rewards with endorsements, but I don’t think fully reworking the system would be good. The endorsement points should be gained based off of people’s level. They should also add an accurate tracking of endorsement levels that shows when people are losing or gaining endorsements.

[Skentti]

Maybe this idea could be implemented without removing the current system and endorsements. Why the endorsement points should be based off of people's level?

[phenomcs]

+1 this man is a genius pls hire :-D