Snipers have a bad reputation: The class is infamous for standing back and picking off kills, all without contributing to the match objective. In Overwatch, that sniper stigma means that players consider heroes like Widowmaker and Hanzo to be nonviable competitively. For some players, straying from that norm often turns ugly.
Illustration by Angelica Alzona
For weeks now, I’ve been hearing stories from people who say that picking Widowmaker in Overwatch matches opens them up to harassment from teammates, even if they’re just playing for funsies. I’ve had people complain to me about the constant insults and slurs that they get for picking Widowmaker, and one reader even admitted that they can’t see Widowmaker on attack without immediately messaging that player to urge them to switch characters. Social etiquette has emboldened Overwatch players to constantly monitor and micromanage heroes picked by the friendly team, and the experience can be awful for everyone involved.
One player, Jean Fauquenot, is constantly battling against the negative perception that his go-to character picks are destructive for his team. The current accepted meta is the “triple tank” strategy, where heroes like Reinhardt and Ana are popular selections, whereas snipers like Hanzo and Widowmaker are never used by pro players during tournaments — a preference that filters down and influences what people expect to see within normal Overwatch matches. If you’re not picking the predetermined “good” characters who historically win matches, it is easy for your teammates to blame you for sabotaging the efforts of your team.
According to stat-tracking website Overbuff, Widowmaker is Fauquenot’s most-played hero, though he notes that he does switch to characters like Mei if he feels that the enemy team counters him effectively enough. With that strategy, Fauquenot currently has a 45 per cent win rate — which is average. During the latest competitive season, Fauquenot has gotten close to “Master” rank on PC. Along the way, Fauquenot has gotten chat banned by teammates five separate times over the last year, and he claims the disagreements all stem from his hero picks, rather than actual toxic discussions.
Within Overwatch, all players have the ability to report one another using a set menu of choices:
If enough players report the same person, Overwatch will automatically punish the perpetrator, regardless of merit. It is a system that places the burden of judgement on Overwatch players, who are free to interpret infractions however they see fit. As you’ll note above, the very first option is “abusive chat”, and annoyed players will often select that off-the-bat, regardless of what the actual problem is. Chat banned players, as the name implies, lose the ability to speak during matches, and with each chat ban “strike”, the length of the ban doubles from 24 hours, to 48 hours and so on. The entire thing seems counterproductive in encouraging a teammate to switch characters — coordinating with your team requires communication, after all.
“Any pick of Bastion, Junkrat, Symmetra, Hanzo, Torjborn, Pharah, Widowmaker, Mercy, Sombra is considered a ‘troll pick‘,”Fauquenot said. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.”
Overwatch is heavily marketed as a game that requires hero switching depending on the needs of your team. Players expect flexibility, and Blizzard encourages people to change things up as needed. The reality of Overwatch is a bit more complicated than that, of course.
People have preferences, characters that they’re more comfortable with than others. Sometimes, common sense will tell you that your team “needs” a particular hero to attack or defend efficiently, but that may not align with your actual skill. Is it worth switching into a hero you’re shitty with, rather than sticking with someone you’re guaranteed to do work with? How do you know that the player screaming in your ear that the roster needs to be changed up isn’t just lashing out, doling out blame blindly? Even if that person is right, if they’re being nasty to you, do you give them the satisfaction of listening to them? If you’re proficient in all the heroes, where does your personal enjoyment of the game fit in? To what degree do you sacrifice “fun” for the sake of your team?
Overwatch players are constantly juggling all of these considerations, and while “always be switching” has practically become a mantra among hardcore fans, things don’t always work out that way. To wit, we recently got a tip about a top Overwatch player named Necros, who is ranked #58 in his or her region — and Necros predominantly plays Genji. Genji, unlike Widowmaker, is taken as a “productive” pick, and with a win rate of 59 per cent, it seems unlikely that Necros invites as much harassment, despite the similar ultra-narrow hero focus.
“The violent insults are one thing I can deal with but they are often followed, ironically, with griefing behaviour,” Fauquenot said. “It is very common to have a Mei blocking my line of sight.” As evidence, Fauquenot provided an Imgur link full of exchanges where people shit on him for playing Widowmaker, including screenshots of players idling in defiance toward him:
As far as players are concerned, Fauquenot absolutely deserves the chat bans. In a forum thread where Fauquenot complained about his situation, one stranger who kept getting matched with Fauquenot chimed in, saying:
I remember losing so much MMR back when I was Diamond because I kept getting matched with you. Hopefully that was countered a bit by the times I got matched against you too. /salt
But seriously the issue isn’t even your lvl of play as Widow (which frankly is surprisingly low given all your hours with her, last time i checked i believe your winrate in competitive was 47%), it’s the fact that you will never swap away from her for any reason. You’re not a team player, you go into competitive expecting others to tank and heal for you and won’t adapt, ever. You’ve had teams plead you to take something else, we were clearly losing and we all made swaps to try a different strategy but you alone will never swap away from Widowmaker. The truth is that you’re not the kind of person people want to be matched with, that’s why you keep getting reported.
It would not surprise me if many people feel the same way; the issue is complicated. But even if Fauquenot is in the wrong here, even if he’s deluded himself into believing that his teammates, not his penchant for Widowmaker, are the problem, something is still amiss. Even Blizzard can’t decide whether Fauquenot’s bans are valid or not.
Blizzard has overturned a couple of Fauquenot’s chat bans, because he’s technically not being abusive in chat:
Blizzard has, at other points, decided that the bans are warranted:
Blizzard’s citing of the code of conduct, meanwhile, only mentions the need for communication, appropriate names and lack of cheating. The closest thing that encapsulates the problem is “toxicity”, which, while a very real problem in multiplayer games, is currently too vaguely defined to be useful. What of the immediate toxicity against Widowmaker, does that not count? If players are expected to forgo “toxicity”, why is it more of an unspoken rule, rather than an official one that players must actively understand and adhere to before playing? Couldn’t all of this social drama be avoided if Widowmaker were designed better, so that players don’t hate her existence outright? Blizzard, for its part, told Kotaku that it has no updates regarding potential Widowmaker revamps. A Blizzard rep told us that they do, however, have plans to improve the experience:
While we’re not going to go into detail on how we determine when someone is violating our policies, we can say we’re constantly working to improve our reporting systems and banning procedures to ensure we’re treating everyone as fairly as possible. As part of this ongoing process, we’ve been working on some updates that should give players better, more robust reporting options as well as allow us to provide more tailored penalties (based on the violation), and we’re looking forward to rolling them out soon.
“This kind of issue is not new,” Fauquenot said. “League of Legends has been dealing with it for years and tried to find the right equilibrium. They recently divided their ranking games in twice. One queue for solo/duo in which players pick a role they want to play so that the team end up following a meta composition and one ‘flex’ queue made for players playing in group where they are free to pick any role… and if Blizzard has an opinion when it comes to picks, if they believe some picks deserve a ban, then it should be implemented in-game.”
Fauquenot also noted that Overwatch could use incentives to actively promote good behaviour, especially since chat bans in particular are obviously not solving the problem. Once again using League of Legends as an example, Fauquenot noted that the MOBA has an honour system that players can use to reward people for being skilled, cooperating and being polite. At the very least, Fauquenot would love it if punitive measures had some sort of warning attached to them, rather than outright bringing the hammer down on people who have been reported enough.
“[Measures like these] did not seem necessary at first because the community was very nice and tolerant but as soon as the competitive play appeared the toxicity of the community raised like crazy. And that was to be expected, as players find themselves under pressure,” Fauquenot said.
“I understand why many people do not like to play with me,” Fauquenot said. “For most people the perfect teammate is the one who adapt his pick to his team and never play what he wants, listen to all the orders of his teammates and always stay nice and focused… I never insult anyone, I always focus on my game, I communicate, mostly to call the kill I made so my team know how to react. But I play both what I like and believe to be appropriate even when it is not a popular opinion, and it’s never a popular opinion.”
Comments
137 responses to “The Overwatch Player Who Keeps Getting Reported For Playing Widowmaker”
Absolutely terrible, and yes it’s still possible to be amazed that this rubbish is still occurring.
I’ll be buggered if I’m going to waste my time in the competitive modes if the house isn’t in order to begin with.
I’m pushing mid-50s on PC and thankfully the amount of toxic backchat I’ve seen has been minimal, but with the latest changes to some characters, there’s been an up-tick in the whinging.
Is there an option to mute someone if they are simply typing crap? It usually happens immediately after matches, so it’s only fleeting but still it’d be nice.
I’ll play with Fauqenot whenever or however he bloody well likes, just saying.
You have the ability to not join voice chat at the start, and clicking a persons name in the player list in-game gives you the choice to mute players individually.
Cheers, I will look into that.
Quick Play doesn’t really lend itself to voice chat most of the time anyway, so I’m actually not that fussed about hearing verbal diarrhoea only cos it’s so rare.
I used to play in the Korean-heavy QP servers actually, that was pleasant enough. I couldn’t understand a thing!
That response from Blizzard basically saying that a penalty was justified because he keeps picking the same character is bizarre. Surely if that’s not how the game is supposed to be played then the game itself shouldn’t allow it. Why not just change the game so it won’t allow you to pick the same character 2 (or 3 or 5 or whatever) times in a row? Or more than 5 times out of the last 10 or something. If he’s breaking the rules then change the game to prevent the rules being broken in the first place. If he’s not breaking the rules then he shouldn’t be getting penalised.
Thats not really a fix though.
The player is indeed in a grey area, he should not just be spamming one character as the game is built around being as versatile as possible.
like most games like this, there are characters that just don’t actively contribute in most situations or just not Meta picks.
Snipers in Overwatch are not liked as they only have one role. Kill people. Its not versatile and not fluent to be considered good in most situations.
If they gave Hanzo and Widow a tool that gave more versatility in group play it might shift the players into liking a sniper pick more in comp play, but at the moment it will stay the same.
Its not fair, but he wasn’t exactly being helpful in ignoring recommendations.
If that’s the case then why does the game allow players to keep picking the same character instead of making them change it up?
If playing these characters as they’re intended to be played (ie just killing people) is not how the game is supposed to be played then what are the characters doing in there in the first place? Change them or get rid of them entirely. But Blizzard shouldn’t be penalising a player for playing a character that they themselves created.
Because just as there is nothing stopping this player from choosing widow over and over each new game, there’s nothing preventing them from choosing a different hero. The player simply chooses not to, which at a fundamental level there’s nothing wrong with.
The problem lies with the fact that snipers are by design useless in the current meta, which is triple tanks. The two snipers are in and of themselves actual very powerful picks, particularly on attack if played right but are pretty much hard countered when half the opposing team are high health tanks with a variety of moving shields protecting the squishies you’re designed to snipe.
That is the game’s design. Every situation and composition calls for a different hero, but that choice is ultimately up to the players/team. This player actively chooses to only play a single hero regardless of the situation every single game. Judge that however you will.
Well guess what I’m going to blame. I would rather people keep playing and just get on with it over leaving or putting up with the clipped wings of a optimums only system.
But thats just how these games work and is mentioned in the article, optimal strats are discovered either at a public level or pro and then exploited.
Dota 2 each big patch fundamentally changes the meta, people not wanting to change get left in the dust.
Same with overwatch, an efficient line up is found (2 tanks 2 heals 2 dps or 3 tank meta now), but then a new mechanic may get introduced, in overwatch’s case a new hero, such as when ana was discovered to be really good in most push line ups with beefy meat shields.
Just because it happens doesn’t mean that’s how the game is meant to be. I have a hard time believing that Blizzard are happy with the fact that their continual efforts to introduce new things to the game and fix up mistakes in balance cause players to fight over which heroes are worth playing and therefore make waste of all those other less desirable heroes.
Regardless, I stay by my assertion that if this is all happening then a) the game is broken and encouraging stagnation and b) a bunch of players are being jerks by constantly yelling at others for not playing the way they want.
Too bad. While I support the encouragement of good teamwork, there should be no disparaging of players right to pick their character of choice and play how they want as long as they’re not cheating or throwing or whatever. Being able to have that choice is a core tenet of the game and taking it away would basically destroy a players invitation to autonomy. They already fixed the rules to allow no stacking, which is ok because it improves another core tenet of character variety in each game. If the game and it’s teamplay literally falls apart because someone chooses a particular character and it has nothing to do with skill or luck then the game is broken.
I agree with Snaacum. Blizzard saying “your behaviour is toxic because you keep playing the same character” is utterly ridiculous. It’s someone playing the game the way they want to, in a way they find fun, and to the best of their abilities to support their team.
If the community is picking on a person because they keep playing Widowmaker, then it’s Blizzard’s fault for not making Widowmaker more powerful. Reporting someone for playing one character is stupid.
Blizzard upholding these bans and telling people “no, you have to play the game the way that we/the community think it should be played and you’re going to get a ban simply because you’re not picking the right character” is utterly ridiculous and exceedingly poor form from the developer.
If Fauquenot is being abusive in response to insults he receives, then maybe they could argue it’s justified, but as far as the information in this article has related, he’s not actually done anything wrong except for keep picking Widowmaker. If Blizzard think that’s against the rules and are going to hand out bans for it, then they should implement some gameplay mechanic to stop that from happening.
I’m going to bet no one gets banned for always picking Reinhart or Ana – but if constantly picking the same character is “toxic”, then they should get bans too.
This is a typical problem with games of this type.
People pick an un-populat character that potentially from the gate hamstring’s and brings down the potential for a win.
As stated they need to supply another versatile ability to snipers to make them viable in comp play. The mindset people can just spam one character and not do anything else is as bad as feeding kills in eyes of players. Having someone that is fluid in character switching is a must in overwatch, unlike some other contemporaries that lock you the whole match to that one character.
Also the main thing people seem to be missing while commenting is this is not just a Quick match, but competitive.
You are agreeing to play in a ranking system with other players wanting to do their best, if you do something that is against the grind like not switching in a team based game to fill in gaps needed then you’re as bad as a soccer team with no goalie. Useless, this is a very blunt way of me saying but i rather not dance around it.
I agree. The big issue here is competitive. Blizzard should introduce a player charter or something that players agree to if they want to play competitive as opposed to QM or Arcade. It could include agreeing to cooperate with team mates, not to troll, pick appropriate characters etc. It would be difficult to enforce, but it would at least give players an idea of expected behaviour in competitive matches.
They already do though: “Too many snipers!” “No healers” etc etc. That’s basically all you can do is encourage team structure. Otherwise right now ‘pick appropriate characters’ means pick Ana, Lucio, Reinhardt, D.Va, Zarya, Roadhog. I certainly don’t want to agree to a charter that says, ‘I agree to play fair’* *playing fair is an arbitrary set of rules not enforced within the game itself but by players who have determined that there is only one way to win.
I don’t know. If all five team mates are asking you to change characters, I think it would be good etiquette to do it. You’re right about arbitrariness though.
Etiquette yes, requirement no. I also think it’s good etiquette for the other players to just deal with it as best they can without resorting to petty actions like chat bans.
I find it weird how you speak about arbitrary rules and how people shouldn’t dictate how others act in a game, yet at the same time trying to lay down rules and core values you want other people to live by, and effectively change the atmosphere of the game itself because it doesn’t conform to your taste.
Just an observation.
Well yeah that’s how everyone acts about their opinions on what other people do I’m no less guilty. I do however think it’s noteworthy that my thoughts are:
A) Not that this Widow guy is faultless in his lack of desire for team flexibility, I repeat, I do not condone anti-team sentiments in a team game even though I do think all team games need to appreciate singular action/tactics in equal measure.
B) That the person we’re all criticising, once again, has broken no rules. There is simply no space to criticise his actions in that respect. Dislike his attitude? Fine. Dislike his regard for team-play? Fine. Accusing him of throwing or cheating or deserving to be kicked? Not fine. He’s playing the game as intended according to the systems in place. It’s nothing but societal consensus that is bringing his actions under scrutiny.
C) That the actions I am triumphing are emotionally neutral to positive. I only want people to play in a neutral to positive fashion, where people don’t get mad all the damn time and fight over who lost them the game or develop toxic attitudes and actions like kicking or banning or flaming people who don’t measure up.
Basically you’re right, I do want people to play the game my way; my way is simply the one where this article couldn’t have existed while also making no changes to the games rules or this guys play style. 🙂
Sure, but you don’t ask your goalie to play striker. He plays as Widowmaker, and he said he will play as (like) Mei if it’s really required. There’s a whole team to fill in the rest of the blanks. Whether it’s competitive or quick play really doesn’t make any difference as far as I’m concerned.
Where he talks about other characters deliberately griefing him (ie blocking his shots as Mei), it seems to me that the problem is more the other players on his team rather than him. They’re the ones that should be getting banned.
It’s like in LOL or DOTA2 when someone picks a hero that other team members don’t like and they immediately start attacking and insulting that player for picking a “scrub” hero or “wtf you pick more dps” etc, etc. Once people on the same team start attacking each other, then team work as a whole goes down the toilet. If people actually go “okay, we may not have the ‘best’ team composition of the current meta, but let’s do what we can to make it work”, you can actually pull off some unlikely wins.
They should get over it. I agree this is the type of thing prevalent in these games and that’s why I don’t play MOBAs as the gameplay structure and petty player attitude literally feeds each other. Blizzard should do what they can to create a perception in this game that there’s literally nothing you control but yourself; that other players have to be essentially blameless unless they are actively being toxic.
Then you go and get a goalie. Comp here is really just ranked QP until players realise that the only way they can control the wildcards that are their team-mates is to team up with who you want to beforehand. I don’t know how anyone thinks it’s healthy to hold the attitude that you can just jump into a queue of random people you don’t know and when they do something you don’t like, just shout them down.
Im just gonna say one more thing.
The game is the game. You can play most games how you like, but with exception of a few that require to be abit more cooperative with others in game.
It’s an eco-system that works for the most part. If people really cant understand what they should be doing, then maybe they probably should try to learn or try to be abit more accommodating.
I dont walk into a game of CS:go and starting doing my own thing of playing the game like i have played cod. i have to try and work for it with people and knowledge of what i should be doing. If i do my best, there’s no issue. If i continue running and gunning like a moron then i get flamed.
It’s a player culture based on doing what the game asks of you. Not you telling the game what it should do.
You wouldn’t, but someone might. But most importantly because if you play so strangely you’ll probably lose and if you want to win that bad you’ll change your behaviour. If you win however then there’ll be no complaints and no adjustment. This guy is reported to have a 47% rate with Widow. So clearly he is happy to enjoy playing Widow with winning only just under half the time more than he’s concerned about winning in general. Sounds to me like he’s fine general competitor in such a huge player base – this ain’t the grand e-sports championships.
Who’s truly to blame for that? The flamer who can’t keep his constitution. It doesn’t matter how stupid you play it never justifies the bad-sportsmanship of abusive talk.
Yeah and the game does tell you: ‘Too many snipers’, ‘no healers’ etc. also the no-stacking restriction and the fact that if you’re doing poorly, a switch might turn the game around. The game NEVER told people that if someone else is a hero you don’t want, you harass them until they switch, and NEVER that just because some players have figured out a meta, you better use it or else.
Agreed
I’d say the guy is selfish for only playing Widowmaker to the detriment of his own team. It’s a team game, and is pushed hard as a team game. It’s not like other shooters where you can play what you want and it makes no difference.
Start matches as widow, sure, but when things aren’t going the right way for his team it’s time to switch it up. I don’t even play overwatch and I can see that.
As for Blizz not overturning some of the bans because playing the character he wants is toxic – that’s a load of crap. He’s playing what he enjoys, that is not toxic behavior, its just not team-oriented behavior. Sounds like those particular customer service reps buy in too hard to the community rather than being objective and doing their job.
The article points out that it’s not that simple. There’s no guarantees that what changes you make will really help based on your own proficiencies. (And the tank meta right now is an example of a broken system and not a winning strategy).
Actually this is where the article falls down. Even if you aren’t an expert with a hero many on OW are very easy to play and even with a basic or even sub-optimal level of skill you can make a big difference vs. actually bringing down your team with a pick like Widow.
e.g. Reinheart you can literally just stand in front of your team with his shield up and help carry your team to victory even if that is the best you can do with his abilities. This is what I have had to do in the past and its actually turned the tide of a match. Nothing down to my personal skill with Rein but the fact that even a small comp change can just help to counter an oppositions teams play or help your team in someway to do more.
I don’t feel sorry for this guy the game is designed to work as a team game. If he does want to play one hero then stay in Quick Match but don’t go near competitive. It’s called competitive for a reason, people are there to be competitive and get the enjoyment from that level of serious play. If you aren’t willing to work with people to be competitive in a game that is designed for this level of play you might as well be trolling. Go play another less team focused FPS if you want to do as he is doing.
Okay, so point out where in the agreement or charter he apparently agreed to says “you must play different characters”? Competitive or not, he is playing the game in the way that he finds fun, to the best of his abilities.
He might find that the quality of play is better in competitive rather than quick match, that he gets better match-ups in competitive, or a myriad of other reasons. But the point is that this guy is being banned because he isn’t playing in the way that other people are demanding he play.
He is not breaking ANY rules. As pointed out, there’s another player that basically always picks Genji that has not been banned for this behaviour. If what you’re saying it accurate, then that player should also be banned or forbidden to play competitive because they only pick one character. The only reason he’s getting banned is because he’s picking a character that is considered weaker in the current meta. That’s not right.
Like I said, he’s being selfish by doing what he wants in a team game and not trying to play as a team.
This doesn’t mean he deserves a ban, but he does ruin the experience for others.
As for the other player only picking Genji – if that works and is not a detriment to the team then that’s fine. He’s doing what he wants and is also benefiting the team.
Blizzard being horrible at balance can’t be used as an excuse to be selfish in a team game. This is why I’ve never played overwatch btw.
The fact someone can pick Genji all the time and not get any bans yet another player does the same thing with a different character is entirely the point. Essentially this player is getting banned because other players are toxic, and Blizzard’s balance is off based on the current meta.
That you could get a ban for simply picking a character that people don’t like or think is underpowered is terrible form from the players putting in reports, and that Blizzard upholds that ban is absolutely appalling.
If he’s playing to the best of his ability and trying his best to help the team as Widowmaker – then any ban is simply wrong.
Genji has slightly more versatility, but i usually see people asking for genji changes when its not working out.
I think you missed the point…
But the point is in OW you are not playing to the best of your ability if you aren’t changing composition/your heros to counter enemy picks.
Forget the meta for a second because unless you are in a very synced group/a pro or otherwise a random combination of seriously good players the meta generally counts for nothing. 3 tank meta half of the people cry on OW for and yet they don’t actually understand what it means. You can pick a Widow in a comp game and be very effective and you should always give a player a chance to show this. But if he is continually picking one hero, not adapting when he is getting hard countered then he is not playing the game to his full potential as that is the way the game is designed.
And yet, he is not violating any rules or agreements in doing so. There is nothing in the rules saying he must change hero as required by his teammates, not even in competitive. There is nothing in the rules against playing the same hero time and again. It might be frustrating for the people he is matched with. It might be ridiculous from a gameplay point of view. But he is not breaking the rules. There is no justification from a rules-based point of view for a penalty. He wasn’t feeding the other team. He wasn’t trolling his teammates. He was just playing the game with the character he prefers to play and plays best as. If Bliz want to enforce a teamplay-based attitude in things like competitive play, then they need to encode that in the rules for competitve play so players have to agree to that when they join the queue. Otherwise, there are no grounds to penalise him outside of “his teammates didn’t like how he played”. If it were simply being kicked from the match, that would be one thing, but disabling a key feature of the game based on a supposed infraction when no such infraction has taken place is not acceptable, and Bliz admins refusing to remove the chat ban based purely on his failing to change characters on demand, regardless of whether the community feels doing such is in line with proper gameplay or whether they designed the game to encourage such, just encourages such a toxic mindset to persist. It would be like in WoW if a player were to be banned from chat for playing a BM hunter that does 35k dps in a raid. Do they suck? Hell yes. Did they pick a good class that will help the rest of the raid? Hell no. Do they need to learn how to play before they should attempt to join another raid? Of bloody course. Did they break the rules and deserve a 24h+ ban from chat? Not on your life.
You’ve missed the point. It doesn’t matter if someone else picks and stays with a different character if it works – they’re benefiting their team in a team game.
Pick and stay with a character that doesn’t work and guess what, you’re not benefiting you’re team and they get annoyed.
It’s that simple. The fact that some characters are almost always a bad pick for the team is a balancing problem which Blizzard have always been horrible at. The only thing players can influence is which character they pick. So if you choose a weaker one and it doesn’t work for the team then you’re being selfish to stick with it.
Note this guy plays in rated matches with this mentality. There’d be no issues in unranked.
No. You’ve missed the point. Him picking Widow results in harassment and subsequent bans for “abusive chat”. This is wrong. Blizzard reps tried to justify it as him being “toxic” because he kept playing one character. Other people play only one character and don’t receive bans. Ergo, their justification is utter BS. Him refusing to play the way other people are telling him to (by insulting him and using profanity, no less) has been classed as *him* being toxic. Regardless of whether it’s ranked or not, this is wrong. The fact that people are arguing against this is utterly incomprehensible.
He is providing a benefit to the team in that he is doing what he can as the character he has picked. He says he’ll switch to a character like Mei if it’s necessary. He’s not feeding. He’s not trolling. He’s not griefing. He’s not actively trying to make his team lose. He’s picking a character that is considered weak and getting banned for it. End of story. Regardless of whether you think he’s being selfish or not, he’s not actively working against the team. If someone doesn’t like the way he’s playing, that’s *their* problem. He does not have to play the way other people are swearing at him to play. In fact, I think given the way people have reacted, he’s fully justified in effectively delivering a passive aggressive middle finger to everyone going “You’re going to abuse the hell out of me every time I pick Widow? Well, screw you, I’ll just pick Widow. Every. Damn. Game.”
It’s like banning someone for not being good. If people are whinging about being forced to play with someone “terrible”, then newsflash – they’re a terrible player. If you play ranked for long enough, you’re pretty almost certainly be ranked with players that much your current skill level. If someone is whinging about how terrible he is when he’s playing Widow and they’re playing a “good” character, then he’s probably actually a lot better than they are. In soccer, some players are ball hogs. If they are, they’ll drop down the leagues until they’re playing with people who are equally bad.
Whether he’s playing unranked or ranked makes absolutely no bloody difference whatsoever.
How is he? He’s playing like the game allows him. He isn’t breaking rules by playing widowmaker. If the team he is with really wantes him to changed they wouldn’t be harrassing him and being toxic. The blame falls on the other teams for simply being bad at team work. If all you do is harrass a teammate don’t expect them to listen to you. Plain and simple
Yeah no. I’m not talking about how easy the characters are. I’m talking about guarantees of success, of which there is none, and if you’re saying that some characters are easy enough that they do get guarantees then they are BROKEN. But all I’m really saying is that this guy could stop playing Widow and wow the team can still lose! So are they going to blame him anyway? It is only up the players themselves to decide that switching will be better suited to their desire for victory and enjoyment of the game.
He’s not breaking any rules. Teamwork is not a rule, it’s a suggestion. Even in comp it’s only a suggestion. Already in most team games we have actual rules that encourage team play and they can only do it so much. All the other players can band together as clans or whatever if they all treat this suggestion with such sanctity.
Thats kind of like saying any modern sport is an individuals game with team elements added in for flavour.
Well it is in terms of what any individual player can do on the field. But really my point is that if there is no rule that enforces teamwork (eg. you must pass the ball to X position before you can score) then you can’t expect anything but voluntary attempts are teamwork. Yes when everyone gets on that same wavelengths then amazing things happen, but I think players are expecting this to happen all the time and it just doesn’t and it just won’t if every single match is made up of randoms bunched together. Then the one thing I can’t support (and is definitely present in regular sports too) is to disparage the team when things just aren’t going the way you want to.
I do not see why every budy cares its none of your concern and if the manager of the game cared he would do something but do you see him noooo so leave it alone and he is not even braking any rools
I do not see why every budy cares its none of your concern and if the manager of the game cared he would do something but do you see him noooo so leave it alone and he is not even braking any rools
They should just add an option to block someone from being placed onto your team?
There was, but that resulted in being abused so that legitimately good players were in matchmaking hell for being, well, good and a lot of people not wanting to match with them.
Yeah I can imagine good players getting screwed over if you get to choose who you play against!
I was thinking more that you could block players from being on your team but still play against them if they’re on the other team?
I imagine that would unleash a different kind of abuse. If everyone blocks under-performers, then the only people under-performers will have left to play with will be other people who aren’t very good at the game. Meaning anyone who isn’t any good will never ever ever be on a winning team.
Pretty awful idea, that’s how you kill online games.
That’s why the rating system exists so you only play against others with similar relative skill.
If this guy chooses widow repeatedly and keeps losing as widow his rating will drop as it seems to be. His team mates just get annoyed because it drops theirs with him…but their skill level is around that rank anyway so meh.
Um, in regards to League of legends….
This guy is missing the point of the queues:
The solo/duo queue is for 1 (solo) player or 2(duo) players in a group.
The Flex queue is for flexible parties of 1 to 5 players in a party.
The way you select/preference your lane position/role is the same for both.
This guy sounds like the guy who queues in Unranked games (which no preference can be set) and then says “adc only” and wont change for anyone/accept any other role… which is always a good way to make salt!!!
There’s nothing wrong with maining a character not in vogue with the Meta and people are dicks to report someone for doing so. However, if your in competitive and your not switching to something the team needs when they’re getting trounced you too are being a dick.
How is he being a dick for not wanting to listen to toxic teammates? They see widow and lose thier shit over it harrass him,chat ban him and block his shoots and it’s some how his fault?
It really does take the fun out of competitive mode. You start to feel like you have to stick to the “meta” no matter how badly the team is doing, the composition of the other team, the map or how good you are with the character. Really annoying if you’re stuck in the healer role and can’t change the course of the match much.
Let him play whatever he wants. People let this stuff get to them way too easily.
I would assume that if you’re playing in ranked, that you’re now in competition with others and you need to fill the role that’s most needed at any given time. Sticking with one character is your choice but everyone else has the right to see that choice as being detrimental to the game. Being able to switch heroes on the fly is how this game was designed, by sticking with the one hero, can you really say that you’re playing the game as designed?
But as I said it’s your choice.
Yes. It’s not encouraged as the optimum form of teamwork but it’s well within the rules and being able to pick your choice at all is a big part of it, obviously blocking players from making that choice is the opposite of that. Yeah they’ve ruled out stacking choice, but that’s a rule that upholds the importance of team variety, which IMO trumps everything else.
I don’t mind a player who plays widow instead of, say one of the offence characters when you’re on defence but when you pick widow regardless of team composition I have a problem. In Quick play I’ll let it slide every time as people seem to sometimes use it to try out heroes (because bots are only so good) but competitive is about a team working together towards a common objective. If this guy is always picking a character who is arguably situational then I am in full favour of the bans. There aren’t only 2 heroes (both of which he uses are defence?) on the roster and if he cannot learn to be at least acceptable with at least one character from each role so that he can change characters to suit situations, then I say he should not be playing competitive anyway.
Heh, I thought the current tank meta implied there was only 6 ever ever.
There’s two ways of looking at this issue.
You can say that the players who are reporting him are in the wrong because he can play whoever he wants, or you can say that he himself is in the wrong because he doesn’t work as a team-player.
There’s nothing technically wrong with maining a character, so long as you realise that they aren’t always going to be a viable pick, and that for good team composition and good team harmony, sometimes you will have to play someone other than maybe who you wanted.
There’s been tonnes of matches where I’ve been like, “I really feel like playing Reaper this match”, only to have two other players select offensive / defensive characters before I. Following the (old) meta of 2 dps / 2 tanks / 2 healers, I’d switch to where I was more needed. It’s good to have a character or two in each role that you’re comfortable with for this reason.
I’m pretty sure everyone who plays ranked has had that one defence match where two people have picked DPS, there are 2 Healers, and one Tank, so you think the last person to decide is going to go a Tank, only for them to pick another DPS.
I’m in the camp that says the bans where justified, simply because he is unwilling to help the team by switching to a more viable character when the need for it is there.
At the least, at the start of the match it would be good to communicate (when he was able) something along the lines of, “I’m pretty good with Widowmaker, so don’t worry too much, but I’ll switch off if I don’t think I’m doing enough for the team”.
Shows good communication, teamwork, AND flexibility.
The bans are not justified because picking a character has nothing to do with abusive chat. Him being unwilling to be flexible is completely allowed within the rules. Picking a not so effective character is not equivalent to throwing the game.
I agree that there should be a different category for reporting this particular issue (such as “not cooperative”, or something), with its own “punishment” (such as one match character lock, or something), but I can see why he is being reported.
Lack of flexibility can be detrimental to a team, and while not directly akin to “throwing” a match, it can certainly not help.
A team can work around someone’s inflexibility, but if that one member is picking a character who is not beneficial for the circumstances (such as trying to snipe enemies who are all being defended by Reinhardts shield and D.VAs defence matrix), then it is akin to fighting almost at one character down at times.
You do need to be able to be flexible when playing competitive. If this were solely in quick match it would be a different issue.
Overall I disagree aside from that inflexibility is poor form. Competitive is nothing but QP with rankings. I mean, what other game or sport do you get to be that abusive about your teams skills or strategy when you’re essentially playing a pick-up game with randoms. The way professional competitions overcome this is by having pre-made teams of players that get along and so the whiners here should do the same.
I suppose it comes down to just how competitive people are taking it though too.
I mumble and grumble when I think there’s a bad pick on my team, but I wouldn’t bother reporting them, or telling them to switch. I’d be more inclined to switch myself to try and compensate.
If the “bad pick” does a good job, I eat my words, but if they remain a “bad pick” and don’t switch off then I mumble and grumble some more, but still do my best regardless.
I’m only SR 3,000 though (on PS4), so not at where this guy is, so don’t know how competitive it is. Even 3,000 is too competitive for my tastes though.
It’s a tough issue, but all I can say is that I understand why someone who is inflexible with their hero picks would get reported in a team based game while playing competitively.
And I too hate it when someone tries to tell you to change before the match even starts. I had some guy tell me to switch off Mei for Soldier on Echienwalde defence even though we had a Genji already and no defence characters?
It’s a challenging issue to resolve.
Well that the thing I think many people don’t realise: he’s definitely heard the mumbling and grumbling and has more than likely weighed up in his head, “I could switch to another character as they say, but I do really enjoy playing Widowmaker.” And then continues to play by the rules. But people are acting like he’s never heard it and just ignores everyone. Like if he’s not really helping at all then that means his team loses the match and like.. so doe he! So if he really cared about winning so much more than enjoying trying to win with his favourite, the he’d naturally take up the advice to switch.
Are you actually saying that it ok to hinder a teams comp as long as the individual is having fun?
Hindering your team is not the same as “not doing what other people consider would be the best action to take”.
If he’s playing Widowmaker as best he can, he’s not hindering his team. A Mei player on his team deliberately blocking his shots for no other reason except to grief him, however, IS hindering the team.
I don’t disagree that being almost always playing Widowmaker is not necessarily be the best thing for the team overall, but he’s not actively trying to troll or grief his team and is trying to win. If you playing a certain character might hinder a team, then people playing OW, DOTA2 or LOL would never pick any character apart from the first one they played.
@amstradhero has got it there.
Also yes, kind of. Only the individual can consider what they do to be fun or worthwhile. I don’t support cheaters at all, but clearly their mindset is that what they’re doing is worth it because they’re having fun. Now this guy’s not cheating, he’s playing by the rules and trying his best and supposedly without abusing his team-mates. As I said earlier, nobody can call the odds on success of a random team with so many variables in play, at least not outside all those statistics that, let’s admit it, mean little to the individual. If he’s trying his best then he’s trying his best, be it Widow or Mei or some other; if they win they win and if they lose they lose. Who knows what was going to happen?
I’d rather players get in and enjoy themselves regardless of if their expectations are shook up, than have a shit time because all their efforts are based on a hollow obligation of teamwork. The magic happens when that same player having fun finds more fun in their own appreciation of teamwork. Heck, it probably feels pretty good to contribute to your team as a sniper by getting a bunch of kills, or by supplying suppression.
Sort that shit out blizzard. Your GMs literally supporting Chat Bans over issue unrelated to chat abuse? This guy is getting banned for doing nothing wrong according to the rules of the game: not cheating, not throwing. I understand that what he’s doing could be considered ‘not playing well with his team’ but that’s not a rule and not a reason for punishment (losing matches is punishment enough). It’s within the rules to pick who you want, and it’s up to the players to make an informed decision based on their own preferences, or what they know about the heroes strengths, or what strategies they discuss with their team. That’s the end of control people get over this.
I am absolutely shocked someone legitimately feels this way.
His behavior is absolutely toxic and has no place in ranked play. Do what you want in QM but ranked there is an obligation to do what gives the team the best chance to win, and that’s never play Widow.
the level of entitlement you are expressing to just do what you want and fuck everyone else is astounding
Entitlement? Well actually yes I am entitled and he is entitled because we all bought the game with real substantial money. Once again: no rule were broken. There was NO cheating, there was NO foul play. The only thing this person is guilty of is not heeding the advice of other players he doesn’t even know. You don’t even know whether the matches that these assholes flaming him actually lost the match. Hell, what if in one of these instances he fucking won the match for everyone as Widow, is he still wrong then?
His behaviour is not toxic unless he flamed as good as he got. Seriously listen to yourself… picking a character you’re fully allowed to choose in a game literally about picking a character you want to play and no matter the combination, put in an attempt to succeed is… toxic?!!
That’s stupid. Even Blizzard thinks that’s stupid. There’s no way in hell they, the makers of the damn game, would condone the idea that you should just abandon an entire component of the game just because some people care so fucking much about winning. Their wacky attempts at balance fixes are evidence that they specifically don’t want their players choosing one true path to victory above all others.
I don’t want to say “fuck everyone else”; I’m saying “fuck everyone who abuses the system just to attack players who did nothing worse that play a bit shit or make some poor decisions.”
Also comp is seriously just QP with rankings. They’re pick-up games with random joiners with nothing but an obligation to be a good team player, not a requirement. Want assured cooperation? Make a pre-formed team of friends who already care that much.
You feeling this way is absolutely toxic and has no place in online play. There is no obligation to play the game in the way that your teammates demand, especially when they do so through repeated swearing, insults and abuse.
The level of entitlement you are expressing to do what you want and fuck that guy who picked Widowmaker (or whichever other characters you think are shit) is astounding.
I actually find Widow can work quite well as a first pick on certain attack and escort maps (Kings Row and Watchpoint: Gibraltar being good examples) – you can usually get some easy picks from inside the spawn, and then you can swap back to whatever it is you want to play and push while you have the numbers advantage.
That being said, it’s pretty frustrating playing with someone who is getting heavily countered and refuses to switch off their preferred hero. I played a game the other night where the enemy team took 3 flankers (D’va, Tracer and Genji), and our backlines were getting completely shredded… but we had a Hanzo AND a Widow that got picked off over and over again without switching out once. Needless to say, we lost.
That’s why I try to main a character in every class. Offense is my weakest with me only being able to play soldier. Support is my best with only Ana being the one I can’t play effectively. I’m trying to get better. I’ve been playing mostly random heroes to force myself to play characters I don’t normally play.
On that note, if I’m a widow and someone needs to be on the point, I WILL GET ON THE POINT. it’s what the machine gun part is for.
I’ve had some pretty epic moments with Widow in assault mode. Very underrated.
Me too. Doens’t always work though. 5 vs. 1 is never good
Oh yeah – I have forced myself to play every hero to some extent, so I have an understanding of how to play with them on my team or how to counter them. I’m with you on the offense heroes – solider’s pretty straightforward, but I’ve been having heaps of fun with Pharah recently.
That being said, I cannot for the life of me play Genji or Sombra effectively…. they are broken characters reserved for damaged people, I tells ya!
Characters I can play:
Soldier 76
Pharah
Mei
Junkrat
Torbjorn
D.Va
Winston
Lucio
Mercy
Symmetra
Zenyatta
Heoes I should never be forced to play:
Reaper
Sombra
Roadhog
Hanzo
Widow
With Hanzo, you should hear my exclamations of joy when I get a headshot/kill because it is so freaking rare
I am exactly the same on the ‘unplayable’ heroes except for Roadhog – and he might join the list once his hook gets whacked with the nerfhammer.
I play Reaper in 1 situation only: Attack on Volskaya Industries. That combo where you duck around the left with Reaper/Dva and sneak onto the point is hands down the best way to get through the choke on the first point… but other than that, my reaper is dead weight.
I can’t play Torb at all, which sucks because I used to play a mean engineer in TF2.
Winston I cannot seem to play effectively. I always end up diving into the fray and melting – he just seems so squishy and underwhelming compared to the other tanks.
Winston is very Jump in, Jump out. He is designed to be a disruptor, hassling the back line.
You jump in, dump the shield, attack until the jump cooldown finishes and jump out again.
I almost never switch unless I see no healers or no tanks or no dps. I am not smart enough to guess what character I pick next will actually help better than my best effort in the last character. I mean seriously you know something that really feel shit about games like this? When you suck and then think “I can do better” and switch, and bam, you still suck.
He should be able to play whoever he wants to play.
Saying that, if he was popping skulls like tic tacs with his Widow I doubt he would be getting so much abuse.
Team based game means team based play.
He got gold elims and objective kills on the screenshot above, as well as POTM, but still was getting abused, so…
Gold medals mean nothing. 1 screen shot doesn’t tell me anything about how he plays his game.
Oh I agree. But your point was that if he was smashing people with Widow then he wouldn’t be getting abused, and my counterpoint was that he was still getting abused despite getting more elims than anyone else, including POTM, which suggests he was receiving the abuse despite carrying his weight.
Yes, I agree. Based on the provided information you are correct.
But… this is the internet… and we disagreed! Are you even allowed to agree with me now? I think you’re breaking some kind of internet nerd rule
I like to fight the power.
May be different outcome if we were talking about a Hanzo main…
😉
This reminds me heavily of the complaints ‘campers’ use to get in CoD. People feel that because they aren’t playing the game in the same spirit as them then that somehow means they should be banned/reported . My feeling on this is that if they pay their money to play then they can play however they want within the rules the game has set out.
I am in two minds here, I tend to be in the camp of letting people choose their own picks if they think they will do well. I think 90% of the time people are doing their best to win, and would end up just being a substandard pick if they weren’t playing to their strengths.
I would say the best thing people could do, is try out new Heroes outside of comp to develop some proficiency; so they can contribute if their ‘main’ isn’t working out. I invariably play Support because I rarely play with people who want to do it, but I do practice with Tanks because they are the second most picked class in my experience just so I can try and help the team composition.
^See my above post for Mystery heroes. Best place to try and get better at Heroes.
I still suck so hard as Sombra though
Edit: Accidentally called it random
Sombra looks hella OP anytime I watch someone else play her, but I just can’t seem to handle it. I reckon Mystery Heroes is the way to go.
Yeah, anytime anyone else plays her, she looks amazing. When I play her I die instantly
Jesus what a fucking toxic as shit community. My kid loves the giant Ape and Genji. Loves using them both, he barely plays other characters. Mainlines both those characters. If people have issues with him using two particular characters, or one, fuck them. We bought the game, we can do with it as we wish. Same as someone who wants to use Widowmaker, she’s a valid character, she should be able to be used by someone as much as they wish. All this reeks of to me, is of people who arent as good as they wished they were and want to piss and moan about it and blame someone else. And fuck Blizzard for feeding that kind of behaviour.
I doubt your kid is playing comp though, right?
No idea, I know he plays it a damn lot though. Like they said in the article, this sort of behaviour bleeds from one community to another though.
There is a mode available for playing whatever hero you feel like. It’s called QM and no one will give you any trouble for playing any of the heroe’s.
In ranked mode you absolutely deserve criticism if you don’t put the teams best interests ahead of your own. It’s toxic behavior and ruins the game for everyone else involved
I would actually say this answer emphasises the actual toxicity itself.
I’m sure if he is playing Competitive, he’s probably in bronze. Appearently Bronze and Silver aren’t as bad in their toxicity.
If you play competitive you should play characters that are going to help your team.
If you play quick play or arcade nobody really cares what you pick.
He can play what he wants, people get too wound up on this shit. If people have a whine about being beaten by other characters, quite frankly, they need to get better at the game and not blame others. Every character has a weakness, every character sucks at something, find that weakness and stop blaming others. I understand working as a team, but if people really want to play as something, they should be allowed to.
But, what about Bastion? No one should play the Trash robot
No, no one should play Lucio.
I don’t mind Lucio, but I cannot play bastion
:O
I’m a Lucio main… because nobody else heals :@
I just cant play him effectively and I hate playing against him. Boils my blood.
Yep, all this stuff is just the death of fun. I mean wow its just so horrible when someone wants to play for a good time but maybe, like just wants to know what rank they can get to.
There’s Competitive and Quick Play for a reason.
If you just want to have fun, go quick play. If you want to play serious and play with other players who are playing seriously, play competitive. If you turn up to a competitive match just to “have fun” then you’re in the wrong place and are hurting the game play experience for the rest of your team.
No. You are in the wrong place if that’s what you think. ‘Winners only’ is a toxic concept in games and in sport. No part of any game in any way ever, EVER is to the exclusion of the participants fun. It’s doesn’t matter how serious the effort, or how serious the atmosphere, if you’re in comp and you aren’t interested in having a fun time, and being able to take your losses and your bad luck in your stride, as a GOOD SPORT then it is you that must leave.
A player that is playing by the rules and not being a flaming or griefing asshole is never ever responsible for the fun of others, and never deserves punishment for playing by people they were never in charge of.
If you turn up to a competitive sport and you don’t play to the best of your ability or intentionally play a sub-par play style then you will be a liability to your teams ability to win. Having a player intentionally throw games by playing bad isn’t bad luck, it’s bad sportmanship and your team is right to not want to play with you. Sure, Overwatch might not be at the same level, but it’s the difference between playing soccer with friends and playing soccer at the world cup. One you have fun at, and the other you bring your best game to.
That’s not saying you can’t have fun, but in competitive team games you should put your team first. If you don’t want to play competitively and want to put fun first, go play casual – it’s all I ever play.
The problem here is that we are not going to agree on what ‘playing your best’ is because of all the variables. One way would be just in the rules, one would be team first, one would be to your choice of skills (hero of choice), another would be to play only in a pre-made team, another would be ‘just for fun’. Then there’s all the ways an outsider would evaluate someones ‘best’, which is a big part of this topic.
What I’m getting at is that, he’s not intentionally throwing the game. All the factors point to this and it’s clear even that Blizzard don’t even consider picking specific heroes others don’t like to be throwing the game. So he’s doing his best, it is other people deciding that he’s not, and it’s those people, in my opinion, who never get to dictate that. Period. The only bad sportsmanship is coming from people who can’t respect that a playing as a team is optional and that they can’t control somebody else’s actions, and so abuse their team mates.
Also I do genuinely believe that putting fun first is the most important thing and should be inseparable from the experience. Because then what happens is that losing becomes unbearable, akin to failure, like failing at your job and being threatened with all the consequences of a being worse than your peers. That part of the experience should never be encouraged. It just doesn’t matter to me how competitive, how important winning is to the context of that game mode – have fun, it’s only a game and if you’re not then conflict will occur, either in your team mates or within yourself.
being told how to play is rubbish. haven’t played overwatch yet but if this is what the community is like i’ll keep a wide berth
I think part of the issue with Widowmaker is that she’s not entirely unfairly associated with inexperienced and young players – witness the spike in purple sniper populations over the school holidays. That’s not to say that anyone deserves any kind of shabby treatment, but it’s easy to roll ones eyes when she’s immediately the first pick, again, when the character select appears.
I love to play Widow but I’m shit at sniping… sigh. That said, I am playing on console so it’s only to be expected (is what I tell myself).
Go with Mystery Heroes. @sernobulus wants to practise widow, so we play a lot of Mystery heroes. If you end up as her, they can’t complain. =P
I LOVE mystery heroes. My favourite arcade mode.
Mine too. I don’t even play quick play anymore.
I do, but only because I see arcade as just for fun, whereas quick play is more of a challenge (but less intense than competitive). I think Blizzard introducing arcade was a pretty good move.
Oh yeah. It was a great move. I do not want to see Mei snowball offensive to come back though
God, that mode was the worst. Played it only until the first win and the lootbox that came with it
What do you think the matchmaking system is for? Even if Widow is an inferior pick, his playstyle of almost always picking Widow is going to be matched at an appropriate level. The matchmaking system itself appropriately rewards/punishes gameplay choices.
If it’s someone else put into your team instead of him, you can be sure that their flawed gameplay, while differently flawed to his, will be roughly equivalent to his flawed gameplay – and yours, for that matter.
All this means is that his flaws are being punished beyond those of similarly flawed people merely because his flaws are less popular. For example, perhaps it’s more fashionable to be incapable of aiming, than it is to be incapable of switching characters?
My nephew is a weapon at Overwatch he’s 9 and only plays competitive, Hes in Diamond at the moment is 300 odd points away from master.
He gets bullied all the time on Overwatch for even being diamond because he is considerably good with most of the characters. Some of the stuff he’s heard is pretty bad, its a pretty toxic community. Does he stop playing? Nah, he rests up and practices with heroes hes not good with.
Its heartbreaking though because people can honestly be so childish.
As for this though, if you mainjust one character, you’re gonna have a bad time,..
That sucks to hear, if he’s on PS network I’ll group up with him. My username is highperforma89.
How dare he play a game he paid for the way he wants to, the absolute nerve of him!
They should permanently ban his account for having the absolute audacity of trying to enjoy himself!
Easy fix: the game mode should block out attack/defend characters based on if in attack or defend.
Easy fix: comp should only allow tanks and healers. Why should anything else be allowed in a game about holding a position for a set length of time.
The problem is really that Widowmakeris out of place in Overwatch. Even a good Widow dose not get in the fight, and when ALL of the Overwatch game modes are about pushing on objectives, snipers are just useless due to this. Why than can kill enemy hero, they sit back and are not actively playing the objective, witch dose not help the team win anywhere near what another hero could be doing. There are not many maps that really let a sniper help eater (only 2 come to mind) witch dose not help.
On the other hand, I think getting someone chat banned for simply choosing to play a hero consistently is not great. I my self am a Junkrat player, and had no idea it was considered a troll pick. Not when I get gold medals most games I play. Mind you, I only play QM, and have not touched Comp at all.
This whole ‘not contesting the point’ argument against snipers is stupid. You only need one person on the objective to contest/capture it. You need zero enemies on the objective to capture it. It doesn’t matter if you kill them up close or from a distance, if they’re dead they’re not contesting the point.
A couple of nights ago in Comp we were playing on Anubis, Objective B on Defense. There was a Widowmaker on the other team who would murder us if we stepped out from cover to contest the point or not be standing behind the Reinhard Shield.
The idea of Widowmaker is to get picks to change the fight in your favour, if a Widowmaker gets a good pick or 2 then her team should be able to take advantage.
Plus getting rid of Pharahs, unprotected turrets and healers, stopping people coming through chokes when the shields are down and dealing DPS to tanks. They really are useful.
You’re signing up to play a team based game and, specifically, a competitive mode…. which means you require the time/effort/energy of your team mates, and winning is the objective. Don’t be a selfish prat and play one character exclusively to the detriment of your team.
Want to do that shit? Don’t play competitive.
He is playing as a team. The snipers job is to support your team by shooting the opposing team from a position inaccessible to the enemy. QP or Comp it doesn’t matter, the only difference is what you’re trying to get out of it.
The other side is you also get abused if you play a character you don’t know how to play well.
So I can see why some people would stick to the same character over and over again.
Gotta say, I’m on Fauquenot’s side and fuck those assholes reporting him on chat bans when he hasn’t been doing anything wrong in chat at all. What’s next? Reporting players as being abusive in chat because they’re terrible at the class they’re playing? Fuck that. Why not report players for picking a skin you don’t like? Fashion crimes are worth a report, right?
If I were with Blizz, I’d be overturning those bans and punishing everyone who submitted the false reports as abusing the system.
People can’t really control how bad they are at the game. But they can control their hero pick. And if you don’t pick your hero based on what’s best for the team then you’re the one sucks.
Players aren’t mind readers, there’s no way to know what hero is ‘best for the team’. Understanding what is considered a hard counter is basically the simplest attempt at this and without true coordination with your team mates has no guarantee for success. Players may be control of their hero pick, but they’re not in control of all those assholes who’ll flame them for losing anyway.
You don’t have to be a mind reader, you just have to listen to your goddam teammates.
Are you voluteering to be the full-time filter for making sure only the team mates that actually know what they’re talking about and actually conduct themselves with good sportsmanship are the ones heard? Because that’s what this article is about, some petty assholes who get way too upset over another player specifically not listening to THEM, because if he just listened to THAT ONE GUY and just ignored 1/23rd of the game they hate but he loves, then they’d clearly win all the time, every time and there would be no problem.
I’ll listen to them if they’re polite, if I respect their advice and actually consider them to be right, rather than just making an emotional guess based on their dislike of that hero.
I make a point of not instantly dismissing any hero pick as long as we have a decent class balance (a guy picked Sombra a few days ago. The team gave him s**t for it but he said “give me a chance”. He was awesome and totally carried the team). But if you don’t perform in your role and then refuse to switch up then you’re at fault. If you’re playing the game just for “funsies” the don’t play comp. Comp is only fun when the team works well together. I genuinely don’t mind losing as long as it was because we weren’t as good as the other team. But nothing makes me lose my s**t faster than a teammate who refuses to play as a team.
Why does he have the right to ruin the game for others because he refuses to play the game as intended?
Because he ruined nothing. There is no metric that available to players apart from stupendously vague global statistics that give everyone their concept of the current ‘winning meta’. That’s nowhere near useful enough for all instances and if it is then, ta-da, the games busted and in need of balancing.
You can’t quantify this shit. There’s no proof that ‘someone not playing as a team’ could reliably win if replaced by one that does. The opponents could be straight up better than you, or could straight up be suffering poor team dynamics themselves. Nobody playing by the rules is ruining the game for anybody and the quicker that concept leaves, then the more we can all get on with our lives.
As I said I don’t mind losing when our opponents are better, but I hate losing because someone refuses to switch it up. It’s not even an issue of “winning meta”, good team comp and hero selection is the fundamental basis of the game. Blizzard understands this – the removal of hero stacking is a prime example.
RE: metrics, even without hard rankings it’s pretty easy to tell if a hero isn’t working. If your Roadhog keeps getting melted by, say, Zenyatta, it means Widow isn’t doing her job. If Soldier doesn’t take care of Pharah, then he isn’t doing his job.
The removal of that functions most pertinent effect was to play true to their games offer of variety. Having a team of all the same character is boring. If anything the removal of stacking goes against the idea that hero selection is vital in the extreme because it removes the players choice to pick only the heroes that are considered effective. Instead the new rule forces only a max of one of any of the valuable heroes on a team, leaving the rest to pick someone that could interact in more varied and less predictable ways.
That’s only for you to evaluate for your own hero picks. Without a massive paradigm shift in player coordination (like a pre-formed team/clan) I’ll have NO idea how effective my team mates are being in serving my own interests. I mean seriously, you really want to play a game where if you’re losing you should jump to the conclusion that your team mates are incompetent? That just promotes a toxic atmosphere where everything is someone else’s fault, where somebody else picking a better character is really the only solution, not switching yourself, or playing better yourself, or not relying on playing with randoms who more than likely have a completely different reason and attitude in playing. That kind of play style is predicated on nothing but a knee-jerk band-aid solution action, a “My team is losing, oh what can we do?!!! I know people should just switch and the meta will sort it out!”
300+ hour master hanzo main here, and I consistently have >50% win rate as hanzo (usually around 53/54%)
I just got chat banned for the second time and I’m starting to get pretty pissed off. Not only does silencing me not fix the problem, but it makes it 10x worse. If I play while chat banned I cannot communicate with my team at all, so I can’t properly sync ults, and I can’t call out low health targets. Because of this, my rank dropped from 3200 to 2700 in just one night, and the lower i get the more toxic (plat) players I run in to.
I can hear my teammates but they can’t hear me and they assume I’m trolling even more because of my silence, so I won’t be surprised if I get chat banned a third time, when will it end? It’s clear to me that blizzard doesn’t care about players that play outside of the “meta” and only care about popular opinion.
I don’t understand the hate towards Hanzo. He’s a solid pick on pretty much any map. I play with my cousin who’s a Hanzo main and he often carries the team.
If i see this player and they Widowmaker expecting me to play around their selfish actions im definitely reporting
I recently started playing Overwatch and got just got to where I could play in competitive matches. I like playing Widowmaker but when I took her into a match I got met with the most hate that I have ever seen. I had the most eliminations and highest damage in a match but that didn’t seem good enough. We ended up losing and it was blamed completely on me. I’ve worked in prisons for a few years and I have never heard such vile things as I have from the competitive community.
If I was playing Widowmaker and was getting countered badly or was just having an off day I would gladly change heroes to something more effective but if I’m the best dps on the team, why should I have to change just because my team doesn’t like my choice? I just don’t understand the way people think towards Widow.
I play as Symmetra a lot when on DEFENSE, and I’d guess an easy 70% of those competitive matches there’s almost instantly, usually, someone on my same team telling me to switch; before they’ve even had the chance to see me play. It’s interesting because I’m very good with Symmetra. I’ve memorized where to place turrets effectively on every map, where to place teleporters for the best advantage, and I know when/where to place the shield booster depending on what point in the match we’re at. BUT, no matter what there’s always at least 1 person telling me to switch. I hate to say it too, but if I don’t give in, and change characters then that chatter USUALLY turns into something “toxic” even if I am doing a good job. Even if we’re winning. I’m not a “solo” hero type of player either, there’s quite a few characters I’m proficient in. I just think it’s a little sad if you’re playing competitive, and you can see that I’ve placed in that same range as you then you should have a LITTLE faith I might know how to play who I pick, or that I’ll adapt, and change strategies as the game progresses, and I’ve been given the opportunity to see the other team in action? Also, why START OFF with the negative chatter? If someone does worse than you in competitive, i.e. gets an all-around worse score then they WILL get a worse penalty, and you don’t have to play with them again! There’s never a need for unsportsmanlike conduct. Now, at the SAME time I’m not saying you shouldn’t give/get penalized for giving constructive criticism. It’s perfectly fine to give pointers, and advice to your teammates. In fact it’s great! If you see a way to counter a hero on the other team, or some other opportunity that isn’t being taken advantage of then it’s perfectly acceptable to speak up, and in the same instance not be degraded with hate speech as if you were not being a “team player”. In such an instance of just starting a round though remember there is a difference between including everyone on the team in a strategy session, and just coming on chat, and demanding someone switch. You might not be using any “hate speech”, or be “toxic”, but people who are just meeting you for the first time don’t really see that as teamwork either. It’ll most likely setup a rift between you, and other players as well. Which is not great, especially at the start of a match haha. Overwatch is an amazing game in that it combines all the great qualities of team sports, and all the horrid anonymity provided by the internet. There’s crazies, and mean people everywhere. So, it’s up to us to keep the “Good luck! Have fun!” spirit going! So………….. GOOD LUCK! HAVE FUN! ;D
Overwatch = HoN……PvP game suck anyways….let pop bitxh all they like, you play how you want to….it’s YOUR game….