TLDR: Blizzard attempting so hard to quell Toxicity, including Trash Talk, is worthless and takes valuable time that could be used to fix the growing balance issues.
I’m not saying that Toxicity is something that shouldn’t be respected. If you’re one of the people that frequently throws games, or decides to yell nonsense across your microphone, then you’re still a bad person.
What I’m saying is that Blizzard doesn’t understand that this element is apart of any online game you will ever play, and many companies before them have attempted to stop Toxicity, and nothing has worked. And yet, several of the last updates from the team have involved ways to stop toxicity. Newsflash; Literally nothing will stop the behavior, unless you get an entire team of people to watch over every single game and ban folks as it happens.
I think that Blizz knows this in some way. The expanded report option, the endorsement system, and the other additions to stop toxic behavior are all STOPGAP measures. Ways for Blizzard to keep themselves from having to ACTUALLY step in and do work. Maybe they realize there isn’t anything they really can do.
If any of ya’ll have a thought to add to this, go ahead. But it just seems as if Blizz cares too much about stopping something that isn’t really possible to stop.
The quelling is done by the community since most of the silences or suspensions are done based on reports done by offended players.
If people are getting silenced or suspended then it is probably safe to say that a good portion of the community agree with Blizzard in regards to toxicity/trash talk.
Personally I don’t report unless it is getting truly offensive. But I can see that there will be people out there that feel their experience is sullied by unnecessary trash talk.
That kinda sums it up pretty nicely, don’t you think? And well, the line between expected taunting and offensive trash-talk isn’t quite as fine as some people think, even when dealing with the snowflake generation.
I don’t think effort put into reducing toxicity drains effort put into making maps or skins or heroes. It’s a completely different department. You don’t have artists hunting down toxicity.
Toxicity is definitely there and it won’t be removed completely but efforts do have an effect upon the overrall levels of toxicity and that’s good.
That isn’t a valid argument. Blizzard is split into multiple teams, ranging from character designers and programmers to game writers and community managers.
They can’t use the “valuable time” to fix balance issues because the designated team already does that. All those teams work simultaneously, after all.
Just because something is normal doesn’t mean that it’s ok. Otherwise, slavery in America could be considered fine. If Blizzard thinks toxicity is a problem, then they have the right to do something against it. It’s their company, after all.
Even if nothing has worked in the past, something might work in the future. So they can at least try.
So again:
Combatting toxicity does not slow the devs down because it is most likely handled by a separate team.
I don’t think Blizzard cares too much about toxicity. I think they care too much about the connotations of certain phrases/images, or being potentially associated with anything the far left doesn’t like.
Wait, are you legitimately saying that these people can’t physically work on other projects? Or are you saying that having more capable hands in development processess that take months wouldn’t make them faster/better? Because that’s absurd. The argument is definitely valid.
Well, in the end its all about money. If you need a sizable force of people to deal with reports that means you’ll have less money for the guys dealing with balance/new content.
And how many graphic designers were working on the report system again…? Also there’s plenty of room for graphic designers in almost all the project groups. You’re just trying to make an argument out of nowhere by trying to fit the round block through the square hole right next to the round hole saying it doesn’t fit
Now that’s another straw man even when I earlier pointed it out. If you don’t know what that is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Even if your argument was legit these people demand pay and resources just like the other developers so they could just not hire these people and hire people that would actually help the other developers. The amount of developers is estimated by their initial budget which is limited.
Yet that field is important for the company. After all, it’s community management, not toxicity management.
(I’m not 100% sure how to call the team who is dealing with toxicity, too, so I’ll call them community manager for now)
Toxicity just happened to be an issue the community managers have to deal with, yet it’s not the only problem.
Blizzard hasn’t hired community managers to deal with toxicity. They initially hired them to deal with community issues (forums, LFG, etc.)
Multiple problems occur like toxicity, balancing, new content, marketing, etc. and all teams are solving those problems at the same time.
True, you can move the resources to another field but that’s up to Blizzard. They choose their priority. Besides, it’s completely justified to focus on toxicity, given the fact what the target group of Overwatch is.
It’s a similar reason why Splatoon, for example, had no voice chat: The game was targeted at a casual and young audience. Adding voice chat would cause other players to be rude and toxic, scaring the casual and young players to play the game.
Also, regarding the “straw man” issue, I accidently have mistaken you with the OP on which I apologize.
Judging from recent patch its proof they do care cos endorsements can be used to make game less and less toxic and make players feel good about them self when they get endorsed to keep things up.
They know they can’t stop it but they’re adding these features to help us be able to filter the trolls out ourselves, they need to focus on it at least a bit so we can come up with a solution that helps, not cures it entirely.
It’s like saying you don’t want to take medication that makes your terminal illness kill you in 10 years instead of 1, yeah the ending still sucks but at least the journey isn’t as bad
Do I personally think it is a waste of time. Yes. There are a lot of things that I think focus should’ve been given attention to first and still waiting for those things to be addressed before re-downloading the game. However, this is one of the things a majority have been the most vocal about, which is why they are spending so much time and resources to address the situation.
Well, now that I reported the 2nd Person within 2 days for being outright aggressive and insulting, I can certainly tell that being able to ignore only 2 people, only for a week, and only get to protect myself from being stück into a team with them - even though I don’t want such people AT ALL in my gaming environment - is not enough if Blizzard actually cares.
Regardless of whatever penalties those 2 People might have coming now, if anything, I should be able to shape my environment to my liking, especially if what’s needed for that is already there.
So the next Person calling me a bitch or me and my teammates idiots with the obligatory FU goes exactly where?
I think that blacklist needs to be unlimited and permanent until - I - decide to take a chance with those people again. It was ME who got insulted. That’s the least Blizzard could do if they were serious about creating a better gaming environment, although I would much prefer a zero tolerance policy that permanently removes those people from the game.
![:sweat_smile:](https://d1kzxbyyijk9k6.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/sweat_smile.png?v=6" ":sweat_smile:")