Can reports be abused?

General Discussion
1

I recently saw this video of a pro player reporting Symettra several times just before the match started. And an ex-blizzard employee commented on it saying that “Anyone who doesn’t work as a team when picking heroes deserves to be reported”.

This does happen to me a lot when I play Widow or other heroes that the majority of players don’t like to see on their team. I know that when you go the Report screen it does say that refusing to switch is not gameplay sabotage. But player can just report you for being toxic on voice chat.

If a widow player gets reported for being toxic on voice chat many times even though the only thing they did was not want to switch off of widow, could they get suspended?
I wonder this because generally if someone was toxic on voice chat only, how would blizz know? voice chat is not recorded. If you get suspended for it then you got suspended cause blizz took the reports of many players as true.
So couldn’t that be used to abuse? Just report every player that refuses to switch for abusive chat and write they were toxic i voice chat. If many players do the same to one player, that player could get suspended.

I do not support this behavior. I believe if someone spent money on a game then they should play it how they like. You could argue that they are ruining your fun for refusing to switch. But they are not to blame. Blizzard is to blame. If team play is important and picking certain classes is important then blizzard should put a hero lock voting system and a hero class limit.

2

As far as I know when Abusive voice chat is the report case they look back chat logs, not sure how they’d check voice. If enough people report you I’m pretty sure you will get an automated ban. This is a weird topic.

That ex-Activision-Blizzard employee voiced his own opinion, which is just as valid as any other opinion. Not working with your team is a detriment for sure. On the other hand in a solo queue environment you will be put into a team with five random people, all with different ideas on what works and what not. It’s not illogical to try and stick to a character you know well, while you sacrifice some of the team synergy - from a solo perspective.

Perception also plays into this greatly. So many Symmetra and Torbjörn players (with 60-70% winrates) are being called out as the problem at the first sign of trouble, because they are considered weak, while some heroes like Tracer, Hanzo and Genji, etc. get away with poor games because they have been historically meta picks.

The argument on both sides is pretty solid, and as a tank player in a solo queue environment, I totally understand if an off-meta OTP does not want to switch, because they know that even if they pick up that healer or tank, the team most likely won’t work with them. It’s a hard thing.

Anyhoo, yes, the reports can absolutely be abused.