Endorsement changes

General Discussion
1

Hey! The recent endorsement change is nice and good function, as long as people aren’t fishing for it. But I’d suggest two minor changes on it.

So currently there are three diferent kinds of endorsements. Shot caller, good teammate and sportsmanship. You’re also able to endorse an enemy player, but only for sportsmanship.

This is what I think is an issue. That’s because there’s not another way to reward an enemy player who is playing well. (Yes, you can vote on their possible card, but this doesn’t reward them in any way)

So this has caused lot of times myself and others of course, receiving bunch of sportsmanship endorsements from enemy players, even if I hadn’t communicated in the chat at all. (Sure you can claim that they’re from teammates, but I’d claim it’s rarely the case) Either way, I do think this highlights the issue at it’s core.

It’s meant to be given for being "positive and/or respectful), but when it’s given for completely different reason, I think it causes unncecessary misuse.

Still, I don’t think it’s completely a bad thing. It does show that players of the game have noticed that myself or anyone else has played well and wants to reward them for that. Instead of just insulting them for ruining their game or chances of win. It’s not all toxicity like a lot of people claim.

So what I am suggesting is to give enemy players an option to endorse enemy players for simply playing well, I don’t think it would be bad at all. If the current system is being misused, why don’t you make it better.

Before you think about removing the function, don’t. I think it’s overall good function that just needs fixing. Also, I think adding it as a second option would be much better option than simply replacing it. It would remove the misuse of the current only endorsement, as well as give people more control over for what they endorse enemy players.

I don’t think the encouragement side should be looked over either, I think seeing clearly that an enemy endorsed you would be really cool, even better feeling than getting one from your own team. (Since atm you can’t be 100% sure if it was the enemy or not)

On the other note.
I do have another, much more minor change as an idea. Since you can give the sportsmanship endorsement to both teams, I do think it causes slight confusement. You can’t see which team gave it to you. I don’t think it’s as important, but it would be much nicer to see from which team it came from.

I don’t think naming the person who gave you an endorsement is a good idea either, because that would cause some people to just endorse players who endorsed them. So having it read just “Enemy endorsement received” (or whatever you’d name it), would be really nice change.

What do you guys think?

2 Likes
2

The endorsements are intended to complement a person who uses voice chat. Thats what the names of endorsements imply in my opinion. Its not intended to hand out willy-nilly, even though thats exactly what people do.

3

Incorrect. Card votes give you a small amount of xp.

4

Are you sure about that ?

5

I think you’re partly correct.

“The Shotcaller - Leader, Strategist”
The shotcaller is definitely meant for voicechat, but I think writing information/tactics in chat is also viable.

“Good teammate - Helpful, effective communication”
Same thing, good teammate might just be a good communicator with voicechat, but also again viable through chat. The helpful can describe for example, saving someone’s life. For example, sleeping ulting enemy, booping a roadhog after hook, etc. But also someone who switches after you ask them.

“Sportsmanship - Positive, Respectful”
This works well with voicechat as well as chat. With chat. For example, you might notice that someone from your or the enemy team is doing well and you simply compliment them.

The issue with your argument is that you can’t voicechat to an enemy team, so it’s clearly meant for something else than that as well. Either way, I don’t think voicechat should be necessary or needed thing for receiving endorsements. Not everyone wants to do that, not everyone has a mic or speak the same language as everyone else. The system is meant to reward people who are good for the comunity in many ways, there are other ways than just using voicechat.

6

I am not really convinced about the idea of endorsing someone for “playing well”

All endorsement types have one thing in common: communication.
Using match chat, voice lines, etc. counts as communication, too.

“playing well”, however, seem to be more about hard stats than Communication so it doesn’t fit that well into the endorsement system.

It doesn’t cause that much of a confusion because both teams endorse the player for the same reason. That is why it doesn’t matter that much whether your team or the other one endorsed you.

However, calling out which team endorsed you is like hinting which player did it, resulting in the same conclusion you mentioned:

7

While I like the idea for endorsements being for voice, be honest… no one uses it except for insulting. Most people are not even connected to the voice chat at all. So even when I try to tell my team mates as Symm that I am setting up a teleport for a neat flanking position or to get a tank/dd to some higher place where they have a better chance to help the team or whatever I am saying, no one cares because all they want is to do their own thing, mostly solo and getting their killcounter up.

So I think it’s totally fine to use endorsements also on enemies or players that just instinctively do stuff right, even without anyone saying anything.

1 Like
8

Greetings, honestly I think the system is just annoying, useless and frankly broken as a whole.
Now don’t get me wrong I think it’s great that Blizzard attempts to improve the games quality by trying to reward good behavior.
However as someone who always gives a gl hf at the start of my games, I noticed that now most people think it’s fake and that I’m just “begging for likes”, and honestly if somebody else compliments me in game or is nice I now suspect it to be fake too ( since it’s happening way more often now ).
Instead when it used to happen before I knew it was honestly meant that way and did actually mean something.
Maybe it’s just me but the fake positivity is making the game worse since it’s meaningless and now the real one can’t shine anymore.

Plus the system doesn’t even work, I’ve seen some super toxic people who are endorsement level 3 and higher while some really nice people are still level 1.
The system simply rewards those who play a lot and not those who are nice, since many people give endorsements out for free, simply for the exp.
And with the level decay somebody who is really nice and a great player to have in your match but only has time to play once or twice a week gets screwed over, while some toxic prick who plays 5 hours a day gets boosted to level 5 and gets rewarded by Blizzard.

So in short, it removes the honesty ( even when it really is meant that way ) and it rewards people based on playtime not based on behavior, so I think it’s best to remove it.

9

I personally get called out for “milking endorsements”, too, because I’m also that cringy guy who is saying “gl hf” all the time.

However, that’s not a problem because I shrug those allegations away.

All in all, the environment of the game got a lot better. True, most people are kind in a fake way but kindness is kindness.

Fake kindness is better than honest toxicity

Based on my experience, that is not true. I know at least 2 of my friends who play longer than me and are rather salty when playing. They are both at level 2, me being lvl 3.

Also, we don’t know for sure whether the endorsement decay is based on real-time or in-game time yet.

The endorsement system is basically useless, only rewarding you with only one extra option in the LFG feature and 1 loot-box per level up (i guess). Yet even though it’s basically useless, it had a huge impact on the community, making the gameplay environment a lot better.

Though we should discuss, whether the endo system is good or bad, in another thread. Otherwise we would derail this thread :smiley: