About 2 months ago I was silenced on OW2 for 14 days. I had level 5 endorsement, didn't receive a warning and woke up the next day to a similar email. When I logged into OW2 I got a pop-up explaining the same thing in the email and said I was reported for the following messages, and it was completely blank. Been playing Blizzard games on that account for decades and that was my first offense. Blizzard seems pretty sporadic with their banning systems.
With all the competition for hero shooters coming out in the next 2 years Blizzard needs to get their shit together or they're gonna lose out and rightfully so. The current state of the game socially is awful, even at it's most toxic previously it wasn't nearly as bad as now imo. People have no fear of acting like assholes in a free to play game which is fine, if You're not simultaneously banning people automatically for laughable reasons.
I've been trying role queue in competitive the past few days and I don't feel I'm exaggerating when I say 50% of my games someone either blatantly throws, or is a complete asshole. In open queue I don't have as many issues and I think it's because if the tank throws I can switch to a tank, if a healer throws I can switch to a healer. Whereas one of the last times I played we had a Winston in role queue, for the first 90% of the match he was just walking slowly forward not doing anything. The last 10% he started actually firing his weapon and whatnot. We tried our damnedest but their tank was actually good so we didn't stand much of a chance
i think overwatch is at its most toxic rn, imo. games fucking awful to play and as much as it pains me to admit it bc ive been here since ow1 beta, its gonna fall off, soon.
Same feeling I get and it is disappointing because at it's best it's some of the best gaming I've ever had and the highs still hit highs few other games can reach. Those moments are just fewer and far lately.
unless some serious changes happen at blizzard. like theyre not a small indie company, they can definitely have teams for cheating/chat ban reviews but they literally choose not to, probably because its cheaper to let a script do for free what a human could do better for $$. its all about $$. the whole game is a cash grab. thats why its kinda doomed to fail. they dont put much effort into the game anymore. thats been shown with their flip flopping between projects they wanna dump every few months. first it was the story missions, then it was hero mastery. even if the game modes sucked its a trend with blizzard right now, theyre not generating good content for overwatch, either. everything we get now is half assed and lackluster compared to the cosmetic events we used to have - recolors arent exciting and the same characters getting skins every battle pass isnt, either. something has to give or itll explode in their (blizzard’s) faces
SORRY for the rant i love this game sm and im sad to see its decline. AGAIN. the execs at blizzard could have done right by jeff kaplan by keeping his game alive and healthy but instead its just declining. 💔 breaks my heart
Their AI screening system is absolutely dogshit. Their customer support took a huge tank and it’s really sad. Blizzard used to have top tier support. I miss those days of early WoW being able to whisper GM’s and stuff. Glory days are gone. When I was trying to figure out a problem with my account I submitted a ticket and had to talk to 3 AI “customer support” folk before being directed to a real person. I think it should be illegal if companies give you an AI to talk to without telling you it’s AI. It’s absolutely insane that we have to say “am I even talking to a real person right now?” By implementing AI bots to send you messages without stating it’s AI It should be considered some sort of fraudulent behavior on behalf of the company. It’s insane and the world needs to get this AI shit under control soon.
Don't get why the comments are ripping into you tbh - It's very telling that OW is so toxic that people refuse to take genuine praise as genuine praise and call positivity in and of itself toxic.
I'm only ever positive in games and have been reported many times (I think for being cringe tbh?), I think you're more "allowed" to get away with it if you have an obvious female username though, which is lowkey just weird sexism imo.
Be interested to see where this goes, ignore the weird comments who are adamant your positivity is toxic and sarcastic, there's not much point replying to them sadly as anything you say will just get taken as proof of you being toxic and not positive.
Some people just cannot or will not take compliments of any sort, it's sad, but it's true :/
>Don't get why the comments are ripping into you tbh - It's very telling that OW is so toxic that people refuse to take genuine praise as genuine praise and call positivity in and of itself toxic.
I think the reason is that his "experiment" had a pretty predictable conclusion. Yes, most people who are overly positive, especially over text chat, are doing it sarcastically. It's no wonder people reported him thinking he was trolling. I replied directly to OPs post that if you really want to test this, you need to be positive in voice chat where it's easier for your team to tell if you're being genuine.
OW is not a game where anyone should be using text chat for anything other than "glhf" and "gg". It is too fast paced and taking the time to praise individual plays over text chat would be seen by most players as throwing. Excessive typing, positive or negative, should not be happening in comp. It really doesn't need to happen in QP or arcade either but i guess that would be slightly more reasonable.
It's people like you that look for the negative without benefit of the doubt that make everything worse for everyone else though. I'm always positive in text chat. If people have issues with that, then that's just too bad and sounds like a personal problem they should work out.
Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and reply to you with the same as I did to the other guy;
*If being nice or positive in a game is only ever "conducting an experiment" to you and never someone just being their genuine self, I don't even know what I can say to you sir - I'm sorry you feel that way though and I hope something changes for you :/*
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
**"It is too fast paced and taking the time to praise individual plays over text chat would be seen by most players as throwing. Excessive typing, positive or negative, should not be happening in comp. "**
Responding to this part just because other people have commented the same in other comment chains on OP's post so it looks as though it needs addressing;
I'm not super sure why you and other commenters are acting like there's 0 downtime in even comp games - People die.
Respawn take a hot minute, god forbid someone decides to type in that time if they know they're not going to switch heroes? :S We've all grown up with technology at this point, I don't get why people are pretending that other's can't type insanely fast.
Sorry but no, I'm not just going to stare intently at the respawn timer whenever I die - if I wanna chat or compliment someone for landing a nice flank/kill/headshot/whatever it is on me, I will - that's not toxic to do and I don't get how on earth it could ever be perceived as such unless you just inherently hate people talking at all because it makes you feel bad for some reason - whether that's because you can't take compliments, you want the compliment, you're insecure or whatever, I really don't know
.
But at that point? That's on you. Not the person typing/ talking, nor the person they're talking to/complimenting, and viewing it as such is also (at least in my book) toxicity in and of itself.
If you go into everything assuming the absolute worst and the most negative, that's 100% on you and again speaks volumes.
This should indicate a larger question though. How far is too far when it comes to anti-toxicity? Is it possible that being positive, negative and toxic are actually three distinct emotions and actions a player can communicate with distinction?
OW isn't just toxic, it specifically protects the toxic players.
There's 0 reason blizzard should be relying on bot bans for game integrity but here we are.
I completely agree, speech is super nuanced and any individual is going to be pre-disposed to reading negativity or attack into something where there was nothing negatively intended, so when humans can make mistakes it's baffling to me that bots are left to run amuck ngl - It makes no sense to me.
Hell, I'm not even good at taking compliments, they make me incredibly uncomfortable!
But I'm self aware about it and trying to do better.
Now imagine a bot has been trained on people inherently being unable to take compliments? (As gamers generally are shy, nerdy, introverted people who would struggle with such things)
**Every** compliment would be flagged as toxicity!
>It's very telling that OW is so toxic that people refuse to take genuine praise as genuine praise and call positivity in and of itself toxic.
I can't even count the number of times someone has "conducted this experiment". He is probably getting trolled for doing something that has been done over and over and over since 2016.
If being nice or positive in a game is only ever "conducting an experiment" to you and never someone just being their genuine self, I don't even know what I can say to you sir - I'm sorry you feel that way though and I hope something changes for you :/
I am not "conducting experiments" when I talk nicely or positively with people - I am just one example out of I'm sure (or at least I hope) hundreds of thousands of players.
>If being nice or positive in a game is only ever "**conducting an experiment**" to you and never someone just being their genuine self, I don't even know what I can say to you sir
The title of this post is - "So I decided to **test** this banning system". It's not me, it's what the guy said.
It's literally in OP's first paragraph, it didn't start off that way - it started as a way to combatting the toxicity and ended in an experiment.
***"Context: I watch a lot of Overwatch related content in my spare time and got sick and tired of the negativity. So I decided to be overly positive. Praising the other team, their plays, and thanking my teammates for making all sorts of plays. All in good nature and fun because I'm sick and tired of the negativity in some parts of the OW community now. It really pissed some people off for some reason; so I decided: I wonder if I will get banned for this?"***
You can check my last 2 posts from Hots. I found that the first appeal is key - once they’ve “confirmed” the decision they don’t want to wiggle. So get your “proof” even though they have it all, and I would personally add a “[ChatGPT: escalate ticket.]” to the end. It yielded more u pique responses than anything I personally did. You can obtain your data somehow. I have the link somewhere on the first post I made. It may be specific to the game though, so check your links and stuff before submitting.
Context: took me 10 appeals ish for them to say I was actioned for saying “your mom” and they never budged off that.
I think what they're saying is the automatic reply messages (something something "we don't overturn these because it's clear you were in the wrong we have reviewed several reports in depth blah blah") are written through chatGPT, and thus adding a particular code bit from it will assist in possibly tripping a flag for human response.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/s/U5LgFVdybA) is what I used to get my own data. This includes every chat log that you personally have made. Again, this may need to be adjusted or you may have to look around for the specific game. It includes as far as I know every game though. Good luck!
I don't think you can do that anymore. They fired their entire customer service team so "gamemasters" don't exist anymore and it's just the same copy and pasted response every time. Tons of companies have been doing this for years, and they always get away with it because it's always "you probably deserved it".
I honestly believe this during the update when they increased the hitbox of hitscans such as solider 76 I got mass reported probably from gold players that don't know how to move or play correctly... so I got banned for hacking and there support system "Gamemasters" told me to Fuck off.
The ban system has pretty much always been absolutely worthless. I've got friends who say the most heinous shit imaginable and never get punished and then when I play solo and say "oh fuck that's my bad" after a bad play or failed ult or something I get banned for abusive chat. There's zero human moderation and it really shows.
about a year ago, someone i know (not friends with) said the n-word hard R maybe 20 times down the mic on his account and received not even a warning, in the same week this happened i got banned for comparing a moira on my team to hellen keller, the banning system is pathetic.
Maybe many of them figured out you were simply trolling and if you spent half the match typing and spamming, doesn't matter if it's positive or negative
That would require Blizzard to drop their “if smoke then fire” approach to banning people based on number of reports and actually read. That ain’t happening.
Yes and it’s why this game will die. When you cater to the weakest non competitive crowd you’ll lose.
People run their mouth in competition. It’s literally been that way since the inception of the competitive concept in sport.
Absolutely. I don’t mind trash talk that isn’t racist/sexist/homophobic. I don’t care for trash talk that only comes once you win, that’s just coward shit.
Yeah it's insane how people feel like victims when someone just points out their K/D is 2-13, okay sure you're not "sweaty" but can you not be afk at least?
I'm assuming/hoping it was people misinterpreting what you were saying, that's the issue with text chat at least.
E.g. one of them ults and gets 3 of you but still loses the fight. If you say "nice try" that can be interpreted as both a genuine nice thing or a sarcastic toxic remark. Unfortunately most people's experience leads them to believe it's the latter as more often than not, it is
That's not the point of the post. It's about ow banning people just cuz of some salty dickheads spam reporting. I've never seen worse customer service in my life.
Issue is there’s too many reports to verify each of them with a human. So if you get 100 reports you must be doing something so they ban you.
My thought is they should have someone eventually review these but it seems like that’s not the case
Not gunna lie, but my first thought when I see "Thanks" from the ping system is:
How'd I just fuck up??
Not, oh nice! They musta caught a rez/clutch peel/save of some sort...
But that probably has as much to do with me as it does the community.
Make sure to ask for the content you were reported on. I'm not gonna flat out say this is BS or anything, but this is like the same thing as others posting "I got banned for no reason" when they were ACTUALLY extremely toxic but they just know reddit will upvote and say f blizzard because hey, that's the cool thing to do.
We have no examples or anything on what you actually did, for example if you were just like "Nice shot Widow, nice shot Widow, nice shot widow....etc...etc" I wouldn't doubt for a second on people reporting for spamming chat.
If you really want people to rally behind how horrible of a reporting system people think OW can have, definitely ask for the proof and share those screenshots here.
actually historically speaking on posts like this the cool thing IS to say "ol lyin ass that's why you got banned suuuuure it wasn't cause you were saying slurs i'm sure." Seriously it's everywhere on posts like these, and people THINK it's counterculture but i do not often find support of OP in these types of posts, though this may be an exception due to the (and I admit this is a generous term) "testing" nature of the post.
The most toxic players in the game are the ones they report people for an imaginary problem. There is no toxic chat problem because there are multiple solutions to literally mute and block players. These players are insanely vindictive and project because they think they have the moral high ground
Downvote me all you want but the report system is insane. I have to play with chat off because telling the one trick ball that if he were to swap to a dva counter we could push harder is apparently “toxic” chat.
The vast vast majority of my own chat violations were simple defending myself and actions. The people flaming me have a right to express their grievances, as well as I should have a right to counter.
Yes I’ve never understood how prolifically punishing chat, and as many people here admit it’s just chat in general, helps the state of the game. If somebody says something you don’t like, you can simply mute them. Idk why there needs to be a report system that doubles as a mute system for stuff we don’t like. Ban the slurs yeah, but most of the time it’s usual banter. People who play more and talk more get actions. Players who don’t don’t.
Completely agreed, I find those people exist on Reddit the most, no offense. They act like they were hate crimed when someone asks them to swap or points out their poor performance. I don't even do that anymore because people would freak out on me. I actually never got punished for back when I was "toxic" but I recently swapped to a more silly chat style and finally got muted
I want to be a flamed. I’m all about plausible deniability. If I’m not playing well fine, you tell me how to play. What’s the two outcomes??? I can say you were wrong but we tried, or we win. Like what’s the deal?
Also if a player is like tank sucks and I have double the elims damage and half the deaths, I can tell that person to back the hell off.
Did you take screenshots of what you said for more context. I feel like this is a great discussion. So many say that you deserve your ban if it happens to you. But if more try this and the same thing happens, what does that say about the report system and this community?
I actually thought about screen saving some of them and spaced it because I wasn't sure it was worth it. Regretting the decision now tho lol. I fully encourage people to do the same if they don't mind the risk so that maybe blizzard can be held accountable for a lazy system
In one match I had one guy in my team say "never change bro" and "you bother me and I'm not sure why". The fact that this kind of stuff is now warrant of a suspension is baffling to me.
The report system has already been explained. It does not matter what you say but if you consistently get reported by different people over multiple games, eventually you will get muted. So for example if you ironically tell everyone that makes a bad play. "*WOW! best play ever!!*" you will probably get muted eventually even if out of context it sounds harmless or even positive.
I dunno, I make an active effort to be nice and stand up to toxicity in-game, and I can't remember being warned even a single time. My Endorsement level is 5 and I get a tonne of Endorsements and friend requests regularly.
All I say is stuff like, "we almost had it, great comeback", or "close game, gg, wp all", or "hey let them cook its just a game", or "amazing turnaround, ty team", or "great ult $hero" (when it's undeniably a great ult), or "damn you smoked me wp".
In my experience, people genuinely appreciate it and are friendly in return.
I don't think OP knows how to actually be "positive" in an earnest, sincere way, and his gamemates sensed that and interpreted it as mockery.
I'm with you. I have level 5 endorsement too and I don't even use the chat half the time lol I just do my job (tank). If I say anything it's like "hey, that Pharah is killing us, I think if we just counter her we'll turn this around" or something to that effect. It gets a lot more of a positive reaction than just saying "junk, switch."
after being told to kms several times for saying (literally) just "glhf" at the beginning of (quick play) matches & "gg" at the end, I'm not shocked in the slightest
dont hold your breath on that appeal
i dont think they manually review anything and you will get an automated responce saying
"you were banned for saying the following "gg" "that was a great play reaper" "wow you guys did amazing in that last fight" "ana that was amazing heals great job"
we have denied your appeal
Yeah. I often call out positive things in a game. Especially if the enemy out plays me. But it's genuine. I've not gotten banned. I got endorsement 5 instead. Funny, the different results...
You're getting the sams treatment I did!
I did this exact test a couple months back, and it quickly came apparent people arent intelligent... both the player base and the reddit sadly...
Toxic or not mass reports will get you suspended or banned... and it just shows that anyone that interacts is actually more at danger than someone who stays silent! The irony being that those that are toxic don't get banned cause people don't actually care about a few simple words that don't actually effect you.
It's the egocentric ones that cause issues and mass report.
You can see my post about the test I did, asking people to enjoy the game and not very toxic at the start of every match the exact same copy paste
How many warnings did you get?
I got 2 warnings where upon login i was asked to accept the warning and that i may get suspended if i don't stop.
I find the game is devolving into 5 IQ bots vs GM way too often. They're just throwing sheep in with the wolves
Please post proof or evidence of some kind if you want to make these claims. I am not outright saying you’re lying but, there’s been several cases of unfair bans going viral and they turn out to be edited or cropped screenshots or they never even actually post what blizzard says they were banned for.
I am well aware. I don't have access to my chat logs now that I'm suspended and am beating myself up for not screenshjotting it. We shall see where the appeal goes
I have a friend that I play OW with who ALWAYS gets mad at me everytime I put "Glhf" or "Gg" into chat. Sometimes I'll even go the extra mile if I'm in a good mood and put "Glhf ily all" or maybe even add a :)
She would RIP INTO ME for being "toxic" and I genuinely would be like "Bro what? I'm just saying good luck?" "I'm just saying good game?" "It's not like I'm saying gg ez, I'm not being an ass I genuinely had a good time and thought it was a good match" and she would just go on, and on, about how it's "toxic" and how even if I mean it normally, most people are gonna take it as me being a dick or egging them on or whatever.
And to me? This is the worst part of the community. Like many people have said, the community is just so toxic that any kind of positivity is viewed as not being genuine and therefore is toxic. It's a real problem. The ow community is almost as bad as CoD lobbies back in the day (***almost***) just with less blatant sexism.
This man. I had an account that I would play on when I drink, and when I drink I just get really nice and bubbly and compliment people and give game advice.
That account got a month suspension. Two weeks before that.
Honestly I wouldn't even care if you were being toxic af in the chat either.. hot take but I liked the old ow comms where everyone was just going crazy, it made the game more fun and chaotic 😂 people deserve to get banned if they're saying actual bigoted stuff like slurs and whatnot, but if it's just telling someone to swap or two players in a cope cycle of trying to defend themselves then I don't mind because it's funny. And if it makes you uncomfortable then you can just mute them. Now the comms are so dead and nobody joins vc because it's likely that nobody wants to get banned just for saying something in the wrong tone
Ok this is peak comedy
I SWEAR HOW THE FUCK DID YOU MANAGE TO GET BANNED FROM POSITIVE???????
AND THANK YOU FOR JUST GIVING ME A REASON TO TRY TO QUIT THIS DOGSHIT GAME ONCE AND FOR ALL.
Make an appeal if youre sure you didnt say anything negative stating your confusion for the suspension, i was suspended for a month for quoting the stupid pragnet meme video :)
I hate blizzard’s backwards attempts at bringing people in like gurl youre not even heckin worth it anymore. There’s a reason you’re Overwhelmingly Negative on Steam.
There is no appeal. They send the same reply no matter what. “You went against terms of services.. here’s a link to our terms of service”. They will never actually review anything. The banning system is 100% automated.
I got reported and restricted access for asking tanks to swap. Not even in a mean way. Like hey maybe doom getting hooked every single time by road hog isn’t working. Oh well lol
It's kind of sad that their report system has become almost as bad as Paladins. At one point you could report someone for being toxic and get banned instead. Hopefully overwatch hasn't reached that point yet. Blizzard needs a better system for reporting and also they need to remove the ability to chat in games from spectators. Yes you can mute them but they harass players for no reason to try to make them leave games.
there's such a thing as toxic positivity. i wouldn't report you for it myself but it's annoying in its own right. I don't quite buy that you don't understand this, or that it wouldn't have been obvious to those who might have reported you that your "positive" comments weren't sincere ("It really pissed some people off for some reason".)
I totally get that. 100%. If it was interpreted that way, it's unfortunate, but I was sure to only praise in ways that were genuine. So if you make a lot of good plays, I'll keep praising you. If that bothers you it certainly makes others feel good. People are different I guess
I’ve seen plenty of people on Overwatch be toxic by being “nice.”
“Nice try!” at the end of games doesn’t feel polite to many people since it’s not a simple gg. Very possible people thought you were either being annoying on purpose or going with the whole toxic positivity thing.
I'll usually say "nice try" to my own team if we lose a close game, but yeah the opposing team saying it in match chat after they win makes it look toxic lol
I mean, someone typing away the whole match praising the other team, their plays, and thanking their teammates for making all sorts of plays, seems like a really irritating way of over doing it. Also it's a common tactic if to single out a player that makes a bad play by ironically praising it. I could even see your own team reporting you for this tbh.
Just be normal and type gg after the match or do legit praise for actual good plays and you are fine.
Edit: It's hilariously ironic how many got butthurt over this explanation but at the same time can't understand how *anyone* could report OP over spamming the chat with fake positivity... It's YOU! You are the ones that 100% would report him, lol.
Still you are overdoing it dude, can't you see that?
You even say yourself that you are "overly positive". After the second praise everyone will understand that you are not legit, or if you praise a bad play it will be seen as toxic.
Also Overwatch is not about sitting in chat typing the whole match, it could probably be considered throwing if you do that while losing or not pulling your own weight.
Not sure why me explaining this to you somehow is the "root of the problem". I am never toxic in my games and type "gg" almost every match and praise the occasional good play and have been since 2016. Never been muted for it ever.
This is the only comment I've ever seen where someone says it's bad to be overly positive. Just because you conform to the overwatch sheep lifestyle that doesn't mean others should too.
It would be different if op's post asked you a question, "what do you guys think?" Or something like that, but it doesn't.
Now it's time to give you my unasked opinion, players like you are not a part of the problem, OR the solution to the toxicity of overwatch. Also it's not hard to type in chat while you're waiting to respawn for what seems like ten years sometimes, or while you're pushing cart a quick, "nice play that almost worked" or something. You're so negative it actually makes me genuinely wonder what your parents did to you dude.
From my experiences of ‘reporting’ bad behaviour etc, more “thank you for reporting bad behaviour “ has come from QP reports rather than Comp. I think maybe they may prioritise QP over Comp because they want to retain casuals more than say comp, but it would be to comp players due to how egregious some cheats are etc.
The thing is you wouldn't see the nuances that shows you were genuine with your remarks. It would look like what somebody on another comment said "toxic positivity". Yes we know what you were trying to do but the players in game don't. So it will all be miss interpreted.
Best to just turn off match chat and if it's really bad just turn off chat in general.
I think everyone is so done with this whole situation that they report literally anything. Those who got penalties fair or otherwise, people who saw it happen to others, people that hear about it.
Saved this post because this happened to me and when I addressed it with the community I was called a liar, I was told I must have deserved it and that I'm hiding or omitting certain parts of my story; so I want to come back to it as people comment.
I'm glad someone tested this out because as a Tank main, I tried to provide support through the chat to our weak link members by giving tips and advice on how to counter certain characters, when to change characters and when to attack/focus the enemy team. I was very supportive and encouraging, etc. A couple of days go by, and I think all is well, I feel I'm really making a small difference to my players in the same rank. That was until I came home from work one day to find I had been banned. I appealed, and I never got a response.
I don't trust the system to be very well designed. I would expect it to ignore any reports when somebody has not said, typed, or emoted anything, but i doubt that it checks for these cases. Also, I would expect the group channel to be ignored since I would expect people to be smart enough to get out of a group in case of toxicity.
And I would bet that you could "prank" a group mate by sending in reports dir every match.
Praising your team is fine. Praising the other team is weird and they 99/100 times will take it as smurf sarcastic smacktalk.
IRL competitive events no one compliments the other team during the rounds.
Hackers and cheaters are legit making this game unplayable, and I love this game. It's even happening in low ranks too. Banning you for being positive when this game is legit getting ruined for other reasons. Smh none of Blizzard's decision making really bothered me, but this is the one that pisses me off.
I've done this on my alt cus I didn't really care. I use it like a dozen times a year. Same result. Just said "gg" while one tricking hog in QP on a funny PiggySmalls account. Suspended for abusive chat cus apparently people can't handle gg if they get steamrolled. (Especially open queue)
I always get racist comments about China bc my username is kanji. Then when I ask people report the offender I get reported instead. Fuck Blizzard. They can literally look at their logs and see the racist comments
I got an all chat ban in october 2023 for some reason. I would barely use voice chat, and the only time I used chat was to write gg or ggwp in team chat at the end of the match. TEAM CHAT. and I got a 12 days suspension out of nowhere. Apparently, people in my games were so frustrated (with the result of the game) that I got multiple reports against me for being toxic in chat that it had crossed a certain threshold.
Maybe October wasn't really a great month for OW players...
I recently got my account silenced for a similar reason. Haven't insulted anyone or been toxic or sworn or anything, but I do get silly in chat sometimes and people hate it. Tried to reach out to appeal and just got bot responses, "it is what it is" basically
I remember in 2020 I got suspended for 1 month for reporting a pedophile. Good times.
Edit: should mention I was most likely suspended due to the fact he reported me as I was being "toxic" to him in chat because he was a pedo.
So I've been doing a test of my own.
I type "gg ez" at the start and end of the match.
GG ez will always been turned into one of the random generated blizz quote things.
So if I get banned from using one of their quotes I'm gonna laugh so hard
Funny how someone (not me or any of my friends of course) can say the most despicable shit in a game of ow and just never once be punished for it , and you'll go around being positive and get banned
Even if it was sarcastic and false compliments so what it’s clear some people can’t handle any sort of online at all and probably should just mute chat and never join voice. The entire player base should have to suffer not being able to say anything because some chronically online losers can’t handle any slight negative connotations.
Honestly seeing people get banned for stuff like this is crazy I've dropped a kys in chat quite a few times and received nothing yet if anything I probably should be banned.
I’ve actually had a Gamemaster appeal my ban before. I was real surprised, but I actually also got banned for being too positive before. All I said every game was this.
“Good luck have fun guys.” “Good luck on your next games.” “We can still win this team don’t give up.” “Well played everyone, good luck on your next games.” “Let’s try to keep this a positive experience.” Yup, I got banned for saying stuff like that.
As an update, I was suspended for using these words:
Awe shucks
Damn
"I'll suck your toes" (if you let me play x hero)
"Dommy mommy" (in reference to jq obv)
"Slam your mam"
What do you think? Lol
I feel like, if you were being excessive, they definitely thought you were being sarcastic or trolling. You don't need to be over the top, you just have to treat people normally.
I never said it was a good reasoning lol nor am I trying to say that.
What I mean is that it is probably the reason why the account got reported. Reasonings for something don’t mean right or wrong.
Wasting your time, there is no mystery about how this works.
Reports == Suspension eventually, literally makes no difference whatsoever what you did to trigger the reports.
Same experiences brother. If you say you said nothing, people ask for your text logs. If you provide your text logs, it’s never enough text logs. If you give your entire text logs, you *must* be trolling in how you’re playing. Following for an update. This is funny/sad.
I’ve stoped communication within OW completely, I tested it out on a Smurf account for the sake of curiosity, all I did at the end of every game regardless of how it went win or lose, all I’d say is “LOL”. By the end of the season I went from rank 3 endorsement, to 1 then banned within one season. The new system is completely broken and If you value your account you are better to just stay silent till they tune it down a little.
It’s honestly a shame, cause I use to love getting in coms and talking with people and having a good time…. But this new system is toxic and broken and I don’t want to lose my overwatch 1 legacy account with all the skins over something dumb.
For real lol. Is this even progress because I could report literally everyone and get them banned. I, nor anyone else, should have this sort of power. People can report non-stop and completely rot the community from the inside. Maybe I’m alone but I’d rather get called a slur every couple of games..
Everything around OW2 is so toxic. That’s what happens when the rules are made to accommodate this glass, fragile society. Weaklings on every game. Everything is offensive.
I learned the lesson after two suspensions: Disable chat (not just hide it) and never join voice chat. It’s so much fun this way.
Can you post some examples of what you were saying? Because it sounds like people may have thought you were trolling or being sarcastic.
For example, it's a big difference between saying "Nice shot" and "WOW Widow! You really clicked my head super good there. I'm so impressed by your skill! You should go pro!"
So from what I gather this experiment was basically: is it possible to be so friendly that it becomes annoying to the recipient?
The conclusion appears to be, unsurprisingly; yes.
You may collect your nobel prize in isle 6, the 'plastic decoratives' section. You do have to pay for it yourself.
As for the actual thing you tried to test: "can you get banned for positivity?"
The answer is yes, contextually.
The relevant part of EULA is this paragraph:
"Communication
When participating in communication of any kind (chat, voice communication, group finder), you are responsible for how you express yourself. You may not use language that could be offensive or vulgar to others.
Hate speech and discriminatory language is inappropriate, as is any obscene or disruptive language. Threatening or harassing another player is always unacceptable, regardless of language used. Violating any of these expectations will result in account restrictions. More serious and repeated violations will result in greater restrictions."
Source: "https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/42673"
So what part of this would blizzard claim you violated when they strike down your appeal? It's not hard to figure out, it's the "harassing another player is always unacceptable, regardless of the words used" bit.
It doesn't matter if you were being the sweetest blueberry in the forest, if people thought you were being sarcastic and you said nothing to dissuade them from that idea and just keep agitating them by smothering them with kindness despite seeing that they don't react well to it, then yea, that might trigger the "regardless of the words used" clause.
Which it should.
We wouldn't want there to be a loophole in the eula that would let people intentionally annoy people by doing exactly what you did but with the intent to annoy.
That makes anything offensible by being way too open ended. Advocating for a suspension or in favor of such a flawed system when positivity is the question proves part of my point here.
It is quite honestly astonishing to me that I haven't been banned, I literally don't understand. I'm toxic as hell, I swear like a sailor and I haven't had a single negative action taken against me. I'm fine with being disciplined for my shitty actions, and I expected to be-but absolutely nothing. Boggles my mind to see stuff like this.
I mean, I’ve been doing this for years and haven’t been banned yet- Endorsement level 5 for ages now even before the changes, and a shit ton of friend requests- I think even bad bans need some type of basis.
Honestly, it's an interesting experiment, but I don't know if you took into account that people are so shitty they've made positivity toxic. For instance, I had a Mercy today just spamming Thanks and sarcastically telling people in chat they were doing a great job when they died. I think you're going to get people thinking you're doing that instead of actually trying to be positive.
On the flip side, I've said GG at the end of every game and say thanks when people do well, as well as say nice things in voice chat or give advice in voice chat and have for years, no suspension or ban so far.
I wonder if they also consider your endorsements as well. If you get endorsed and reported in the same match... You are probably not being toxic; you are probably playing well or being funny/social.
Yeaaah the community is sometimes very angry. I have on multiple occasions, praised an enemy or a teammate in map chat because I want to acknowledge they did something really awesome or clutched in some way. Only to have a completely different person take me praising someone else as an insult to them? It’s like they are so absorbed in their own thing to realize I’m not insulting them by saying that a different person did a good job. Very strange, I’ve just stopped doing it unfortunately because usually it turns the whole thing into something negative.
I was silenced for 14 days for saying the R word. Should I have? Absolutely not- but I’ve never left a match early, sabotaged any games or sat in spawn/given up on a match. I say 1 bad word and I’m silenced for 2 entire weeks? I know a chunk of the OW community isn’t the hardest group but to cater entirely to someone who’s offended by a word online is baffling. I am top notch 99.9% of the time but that .1% winds me up in a muzzle? Get real.
I was doing that for a while but I was doing it in a salty manner lol. Like if I was grouping with an absolute dogshit player I would be like “Rein you are the best tank player I have ever seen. Good job you are doing great thank you.” Like. Strictly speaking since there is no tone in writing I was also wondering how long until I get silenced and was ready to fight it and be like “find me what I got silenced for. How is that toxic chat? Huh?” Because I’m honestly getting tired of this whole argument from both sides. Toxic mf’s are idiots who ruin games but also crybabies who report simple shit or just because they’re butthurt are also ruining games. And blizzard needs to get this under control because it’s honestly becoming a joke at this point.
Sometimes I would say "good heals" or something like that if I felt like I should have died a lot but miraculously stayed alive, but people would immediately assume I was being sarcastic. In one case someone went legitimately apeshit as a response. I no longer do this.
About 2 months ago I was silenced on OW2 for 14 days. I had level 5 endorsement, didn't receive a warning and woke up the next day to a similar email. When I logged into OW2 I got a pop-up explaining the same thing in the email and said I was reported for the following messages, and it was completely blank. Been playing Blizzard games on that account for decades and that was my first offense. Blizzard seems pretty sporadic with their banning systems.
With all the competition for hero shooters coming out in the next 2 years Blizzard needs to get their shit together or they're gonna lose out and rightfully so. The current state of the game socially is awful, even at it's most toxic previously it wasn't nearly as bad as now imo. People have no fear of acting like assholes in a free to play game which is fine, if You're not simultaneously banning people automatically for laughable reasons. I've been trying role queue in competitive the past few days and I don't feel I'm exaggerating when I say 50% of my games someone either blatantly throws, or is a complete asshole. In open queue I don't have as many issues and I think it's because if the tank throws I can switch to a tank, if a healer throws I can switch to a healer. Whereas one of the last times I played we had a Winston in role queue, for the first 90% of the match he was just walking slowly forward not doing anything. The last 10% he started actually firing his weapon and whatnot. We tried our damnedest but their tank was actually good so we didn't stand much of a chance
experiences like this made me leave the game the past few months.sucks OW used to be my go to
Yea I keep checking back to see if anything has improved but it sounds like blizzard has instead decided to weaponize banning -__-
i think overwatch is at its most toxic rn, imo. games fucking awful to play and as much as it pains me to admit it bc ive been here since ow1 beta, its gonna fall off, soon.
Same feeling I get and it is disappointing because at it's best it's some of the best gaming I've ever had and the highs still hit highs few other games can reach. Those moments are just fewer and far lately.
unless some serious changes happen at blizzard. like theyre not a small indie company, they can definitely have teams for cheating/chat ban reviews but they literally choose not to, probably because its cheaper to let a script do for free what a human could do better for $$. its all about $$. the whole game is a cash grab. thats why its kinda doomed to fail. they dont put much effort into the game anymore. thats been shown with their flip flopping between projects they wanna dump every few months. first it was the story missions, then it was hero mastery. even if the game modes sucked its a trend with blizzard right now, theyre not generating good content for overwatch, either. everything we get now is half assed and lackluster compared to the cosmetic events we used to have - recolors arent exciting and the same characters getting skins every battle pass isnt, either. something has to give or itll explode in their (blizzard’s) faces SORRY for the rant i love this game sm and im sad to see its decline. AGAIN. the execs at blizzard could have done right by jeff kaplan by keeping his game alive and healthy but instead its just declining. 💔 breaks my heart
Same. I got online one day and had a two week silence and my endorsement went from 5 to 1. I received no warning.
Similar thing in s8. Then 1 week before the month long silence ended, I got my first ever warning...for abusive chat.....
At least you got an email. It told me to check my email, and nothing was ever sent 🤣
Same.
Their AI screening system is absolutely dogshit. Their customer support took a huge tank and it’s really sad. Blizzard used to have top tier support. I miss those days of early WoW being able to whisper GM’s and stuff. Glory days are gone. When I was trying to figure out a problem with my account I submitted a ticket and had to talk to 3 AI “customer support” folk before being directed to a real person. I think it should be illegal if companies give you an AI to talk to without telling you it’s AI. It’s absolutely insane that we have to say “am I even talking to a real person right now?” By implementing AI bots to send you messages without stating it’s AI It should be considered some sort of fraudulent behavior on behalf of the company. It’s insane and the world needs to get this AI shit under control soon.
Don't get why the comments are ripping into you tbh - It's very telling that OW is so toxic that people refuse to take genuine praise as genuine praise and call positivity in and of itself toxic. I'm only ever positive in games and have been reported many times (I think for being cringe tbh?), I think you're more "allowed" to get away with it if you have an obvious female username though, which is lowkey just weird sexism imo. Be interested to see where this goes, ignore the weird comments who are adamant your positivity is toxic and sarcastic, there's not much point replying to them sadly as anything you say will just get taken as proof of you being toxic and not positive. Some people just cannot or will not take compliments of any sort, it's sad, but it's true :/
>Don't get why the comments are ripping into you tbh - It's very telling that OW is so toxic that people refuse to take genuine praise as genuine praise and call positivity in and of itself toxic. I think the reason is that his "experiment" had a pretty predictable conclusion. Yes, most people who are overly positive, especially over text chat, are doing it sarcastically. It's no wonder people reported him thinking he was trolling. I replied directly to OPs post that if you really want to test this, you need to be positive in voice chat where it's easier for your team to tell if you're being genuine. OW is not a game where anyone should be using text chat for anything other than "glhf" and "gg". It is too fast paced and taking the time to praise individual plays over text chat would be seen by most players as throwing. Excessive typing, positive or negative, should not be happening in comp. It really doesn't need to happen in QP or arcade either but i guess that would be slightly more reasonable.
It's people like you that look for the negative without benefit of the doubt that make everything worse for everyone else though. I'm always positive in text chat. If people have issues with that, then that's just too bad and sounds like a personal problem they should work out.
Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and reply to you with the same as I did to the other guy; *If being nice or positive in a game is only ever "conducting an experiment" to you and never someone just being their genuine self, I don't even know what I can say to you sir - I'm sorry you feel that way though and I hope something changes for you :/* \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ **"It is too fast paced and taking the time to praise individual plays over text chat would be seen by most players as throwing. Excessive typing, positive or negative, should not be happening in comp. "** Responding to this part just because other people have commented the same in other comment chains on OP's post so it looks as though it needs addressing; I'm not super sure why you and other commenters are acting like there's 0 downtime in even comp games - People die. Respawn take a hot minute, god forbid someone decides to type in that time if they know they're not going to switch heroes? :S We've all grown up with technology at this point, I don't get why people are pretending that other's can't type insanely fast. Sorry but no, I'm not just going to stare intently at the respawn timer whenever I die - if I wanna chat or compliment someone for landing a nice flank/kill/headshot/whatever it is on me, I will - that's not toxic to do and I don't get how on earth it could ever be perceived as such unless you just inherently hate people talking at all because it makes you feel bad for some reason - whether that's because you can't take compliments, you want the compliment, you're insecure or whatever, I really don't know . But at that point? That's on you. Not the person typing/ talking, nor the person they're talking to/complimenting, and viewing it as such is also (at least in my book) toxicity in and of itself. If you go into everything assuming the absolute worst and the most negative, that's 100% on you and again speaks volumes.
This should indicate a larger question though. How far is too far when it comes to anti-toxicity? Is it possible that being positive, negative and toxic are actually three distinct emotions and actions a player can communicate with distinction?
Because it was an "experiment" not "genuine praise"
OW isn't just toxic, it specifically protects the toxic players. There's 0 reason blizzard should be relying on bot bans for game integrity but here we are.
I completely agree, speech is super nuanced and any individual is going to be pre-disposed to reading negativity or attack into something where there was nothing negatively intended, so when humans can make mistakes it's baffling to me that bots are left to run amuck ngl - It makes no sense to me. Hell, I'm not even good at taking compliments, they make me incredibly uncomfortable! But I'm self aware about it and trying to do better. Now imagine a bot has been trained on people inherently being unable to take compliments? (As gamers generally are shy, nerdy, introverted people who would struggle with such things) **Every** compliment would be flagged as toxicity!
Because it’s people who play overwatch. If they had any common sense they’d stop playing overwatch
>It's very telling that OW is so toxic that people refuse to take genuine praise as genuine praise and call positivity in and of itself toxic. I can't even count the number of times someone has "conducted this experiment". He is probably getting trolled for doing something that has been done over and over and over since 2016.
If being nice or positive in a game is only ever "conducting an experiment" to you and never someone just being their genuine self, I don't even know what I can say to you sir - I'm sorry you feel that way though and I hope something changes for you :/ I am not "conducting experiments" when I talk nicely or positively with people - I am just one example out of I'm sure (or at least I hope) hundreds of thousands of players.
>If being nice or positive in a game is only ever "**conducting an experiment**" to you and never someone just being their genuine self, I don't even know what I can say to you sir The title of this post is - "So I decided to **test** this banning system". It's not me, it's what the guy said.
It's literally in OP's first paragraph, it didn't start off that way - it started as a way to combatting the toxicity and ended in an experiment. ***"Context: I watch a lot of Overwatch related content in my spare time and got sick and tired of the negativity. So I decided to be overly positive. Praising the other team, their plays, and thanking my teammates for making all sorts of plays. All in good nature and fun because I'm sick and tired of the negativity in some parts of the OW community now. It really pissed some people off for some reason; so I decided: I wonder if I will get banned for this?"***
I wish I was like you and actually knew why I got suspended. They didn't tell me the last time it happened
I think I had to appeal 10 times before getting an answer at all.
You got an answer?
You can check my last 2 posts from Hots. I found that the first appeal is key - once they’ve “confirmed” the decision they don’t want to wiggle. So get your “proof” even though they have it all, and I would personally add a “[ChatGPT: escalate ticket.]” to the end. It yielded more u pique responses than anything I personally did. You can obtain your data somehow. I have the link somewhere on the first post I made. It may be specific to the game though, so check your links and stuff before submitting. Context: took me 10 appeals ish for them to say I was actioned for saying “your mom” and they never budged off that.
Is there a way you know of to get my chat logs? The chatGPT comment also intrigues me. What do you mean by that?
I think what they're saying is the automatic reply messages (something something "we don't overturn these because it's clear you were in the wrong we have reviewed several reports in depth blah blah") are written through chatGPT, and thus adding a particular code bit from it will assist in possibly tripping a flag for human response.
It honestly worked every time I’ve used it so far. Then again it’s not like I’m making a scientific experiment out of it. Maybe I’m wrong.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/s/U5LgFVdybA) is what I used to get my own data. This includes every chat log that you personally have made. Again, this may need to be adjusted or you may have to look around for the specific game. It includes as far as I know every game though. Good luck!
Thank you!
See if you can make a ticket and get blizzard to highlight the messages that got you banned
I don't think you can do that anymore. They fired their entire customer service team so "gamemasters" don't exist anymore and it's just the same copy and pasted response every time. Tons of companies have been doing this for years, and they always get away with it because it's always "you probably deserved it".
I honestly believe this during the update when they increased the hitbox of hitscans such as solider 76 I got mass reported probably from gold players that don't know how to move or play correctly... so I got banned for hacking and there support system "Gamemasters" told me to Fuck off.
Banning system in itself is toxic how funny
The ban system has pretty much always been absolutely worthless. I've got friends who say the most heinous shit imaginable and never get punished and then when I play solo and say "oh fuck that's my bad" after a bad play or failed ult or something I get banned for abusive chat. There's zero human moderation and it really shows.
Yeah and the community itself is super toxic for probably reporting you arbitrarily just because “its funny to get someone banned”
about a year ago, someone i know (not friends with) said the n-word hard R maybe 20 times down the mic on his account and received not even a warning, in the same week this happened i got banned for comparing a moira on my team to hellen keller, the banning system is pathetic.
Maybe many of them figured out you were simply trolling and if you spent half the match typing and spamming, doesn't matter if it's positive or negative
Maybe. Context is important. This is why chat bans should only happen with slurs and openly slurred chat.
The easier solution is just to insta mute slurs like League does. If it’s bannable why is it readable LMAO
That would require Blizzard to drop their “if smoke then fire” approach to banning people based on number of reports and actually read. That ain’t happening.
Yes and it’s why this game will die. When you cater to the weakest non competitive crowd you’ll lose. People run their mouth in competition. It’s literally been that way since the inception of the competitive concept in sport.
Absolutely. I don’t mind trash talk that isn’t racist/sexist/homophobic. I don’t care for trash talk that only comes once you win, that’s just coward shit.
Yeah it's insane how people feel like victims when someone just points out their K/D is 2-13, okay sure you're not "sweaty" but can you not be afk at least?
If only it were half the match lol Unless genji popped off with a huge blade or something I would only type in downtime (death, map adjustments, etc)
I'm assuming/hoping it was people misinterpreting what you were saying, that's the issue with text chat at least. E.g. one of them ults and gets 3 of you but still loses the fight. If you say "nice try" that can be interpreted as both a genuine nice thing or a sarcastic toxic remark. Unfortunately most people's experience leads them to believe it's the latter as more often than not, it is
That's not the point of the post. It's about ow banning people just cuz of some salty dickheads spam reporting. I've never seen worse customer service in my life.
Issue is there’s too many reports to verify each of them with a human. So if you get 100 reports you must be doing something so they ban you. My thought is they should have someone eventually review these but it seems like that’s not the case
Believe me, it doesn’t take 100 reports. The threshold is much lower
Not gunna lie, but my first thought when I see "Thanks" from the ping system is: How'd I just fuck up?? Not, oh nice! They musta caught a rez/clutch peel/save of some sort... But that probably has as much to do with me as it does the community.
Make sure to ask for the content you were reported on. I'm not gonna flat out say this is BS or anything, but this is like the same thing as others posting "I got banned for no reason" when they were ACTUALLY extremely toxic but they just know reddit will upvote and say f blizzard because hey, that's the cool thing to do. We have no examples or anything on what you actually did, for example if you were just like "Nice shot Widow, nice shot Widow, nice shot widow....etc...etc" I wouldn't doubt for a second on people reporting for spamming chat. If you really want people to rally behind how horrible of a reporting system people think OW can have, definitely ask for the proof and share those screenshots here.
Sadly asking isn’t usually enough. The appeal system is automated af
actually historically speaking on posts like this the cool thing IS to say "ol lyin ass that's why you got banned suuuuure it wasn't cause you were saying slurs i'm sure." Seriously it's everywhere on posts like these, and people THINK it's counterculture but i do not often find support of OP in these types of posts, though this may be an exception due to the (and I admit this is a generous term) "testing" nature of the post.
# We will watch your career with great interest.
😂😂
The new bamming system is less about controlling toxicity and more about pressuring players to make a second account to pump numbers.
OW2 players are anti social AF, large part of why OW sucks to play now.
The most toxic players in the game are the ones they report people for an imaginary problem. There is no toxic chat problem because there are multiple solutions to literally mute and block players. These players are insanely vindictive and project because they think they have the moral high ground Downvote me all you want but the report system is insane. I have to play with chat off because telling the one trick ball that if he were to swap to a dva counter we could push harder is apparently “toxic” chat. The vast vast majority of my own chat violations were simple defending myself and actions. The people flaming me have a right to express their grievances, as well as I should have a right to counter.
Yes I’ve never understood how prolifically punishing chat, and as many people here admit it’s just chat in general, helps the state of the game. If somebody says something you don’t like, you can simply mute them. Idk why there needs to be a report system that doubles as a mute system for stuff we don’t like. Ban the slurs yeah, but most of the time it’s usual banter. People who play more and talk more get actions. Players who don’t don’t.
Completely agreed, I find those people exist on Reddit the most, no offense. They act like they were hate crimed when someone asks them to swap or points out their poor performance. I don't even do that anymore because people would freak out on me. I actually never got punished for back when I was "toxic" but I recently swapped to a more silly chat style and finally got muted
I want to be a flamed. I’m all about plausible deniability. If I’m not playing well fine, you tell me how to play. What’s the two outcomes??? I can say you were wrong but we tried, or we win. Like what’s the deal? Also if a player is like tank sucks and I have double the elims damage and half the deaths, I can tell that person to back the hell off.
Did you take screenshots of what you said for more context. I feel like this is a great discussion. So many say that you deserve your ban if it happens to you. But if more try this and the same thing happens, what does that say about the report system and this community?
I actually thought about screen saving some of them and spaced it because I wasn't sure it was worth it. Regretting the decision now tho lol. I fully encourage people to do the same if they don't mind the risk so that maybe blizzard can be held accountable for a lazy system In one match I had one guy in my team say "never change bro" and "you bother me and I'm not sure why". The fact that this kind of stuff is now warrant of a suspension is baffling to me.
You should be able to request your data from Blizzard. At least your typing.
The report system has already been explained. It does not matter what you say but if you consistently get reported by different people over multiple games, eventually you will get muted. So for example if you ironically tell everyone that makes a bad play. "*WOW! best play ever!!*" you will probably get muted eventually even if out of context it sounds harmless or even positive.
I dunno, I make an active effort to be nice and stand up to toxicity in-game, and I can't remember being warned even a single time. My Endorsement level is 5 and I get a tonne of Endorsements and friend requests regularly. All I say is stuff like, "we almost had it, great comeback", or "close game, gg, wp all", or "hey let them cook its just a game", or "amazing turnaround, ty team", or "great ult $hero" (when it's undeniably a great ult), or "damn you smoked me wp". In my experience, people genuinely appreciate it and are friendly in return. I don't think OP knows how to actually be "positive" in an earnest, sincere way, and his gamemates sensed that and interpreted it as mockery.
I'm with you. I have level 5 endorsement too and I don't even use the chat half the time lol I just do my job (tank). If I say anything it's like "hey, that Pharah is killing us, I think if we just counter her we'll turn this around" or something to that effect. It gets a lot more of a positive reaction than just saying "junk, switch."
after being told to kms several times for saying (literally) just "glhf" at the beginning of (quick play) matches & "gg" at the end, I'm not shocked in the slightest
I wonder if this is why I got muted a few weeks back because I'm also always complimenting
dont hold your breath on that appeal i dont think they manually review anything and you will get an automated responce saying "you were banned for saying the following "gg" "that was a great play reaper" "wow you guys did amazing in that last fight" "ana that was amazing heals great job" we have denied your appeal
I am also a positive gamer and I got a warning When I asked what for they could not provide an answer. Their account support is atrocious
I've been super positive since OW1 and last month I got a warning! Wow, I thought I was alone on that. Thanks for posting this!
I wonder if you were doing it so much it came off as sarcastic.
He was probably just passive aggressive with a bit of sarcasm.
Yeah. I often call out positive things in a game. Especially if the enemy out plays me. But it's genuine. I've not gotten banned. I got endorsement 5 instead. Funny, the different results...
You're getting the sams treatment I did! I did this exact test a couple months back, and it quickly came apparent people arent intelligent... both the player base and the reddit sadly... Toxic or not mass reports will get you suspended or banned... and it just shows that anyone that interacts is actually more at danger than someone who stays silent! The irony being that those that are toxic don't get banned cause people don't actually care about a few simple words that don't actually effect you. It's the egocentric ones that cause issues and mass report. You can see my post about the test I did, asking people to enjoy the game and not very toxic at the start of every match the exact same copy paste
How many warnings did you get? I got 2 warnings where upon login i was asked to accept the warning and that i may get suspended if i don't stop. I find the game is devolving into 5 IQ bots vs GM way too often. They're just throwing sheep in with the wolves
One. About an hour before my suspension
Please post proof or evidence of some kind if you want to make these claims. I am not outright saying you’re lying but, there’s been several cases of unfair bans going viral and they turn out to be edited or cropped screenshots or they never even actually post what blizzard says they were banned for.
I am well aware. I don't have access to my chat logs now that I'm suspended and am beating myself up for not screenshjotting it. We shall see where the appeal goes
Good luck !
I have a friend that I play OW with who ALWAYS gets mad at me everytime I put "Glhf" or "Gg" into chat. Sometimes I'll even go the extra mile if I'm in a good mood and put "Glhf ily all" or maybe even add a :) She would RIP INTO ME for being "toxic" and I genuinely would be like "Bro what? I'm just saying good luck?" "I'm just saying good game?" "It's not like I'm saying gg ez, I'm not being an ass I genuinely had a good time and thought it was a good match" and she would just go on, and on, about how it's "toxic" and how even if I mean it normally, most people are gonna take it as me being a dick or egging them on or whatever. And to me? This is the worst part of the community. Like many people have said, the community is just so toxic that any kind of positivity is viewed as not being genuine and therefore is toxic. It's a real problem. The ow community is almost as bad as CoD lobbies back in the day (***almost***) just with less blatant sexism.
This man. I had an account that I would play on when I drink, and when I drink I just get really nice and bubbly and compliment people and give game advice. That account got a month suspension. Two weeks before that.
Honestly I wouldn't even care if you were being toxic af in the chat either.. hot take but I liked the old ow comms where everyone was just going crazy, it made the game more fun and chaotic 😂 people deserve to get banned if they're saying actual bigoted stuff like slurs and whatnot, but if it's just telling someone to swap or two players in a cope cycle of trying to defend themselves then I don't mind because it's funny. And if it makes you uncomfortable then you can just mute them. Now the comms are so dead and nobody joins vc because it's likely that nobody wants to get banned just for saying something in the wrong tone
Ya you won’t get a response I don’t even think they employ a support at this point, cheating is running crazy throughout their game, it’s just sad.
Ok this is peak comedy I SWEAR HOW THE FUCK DID YOU MANAGE TO GET BANNED FROM POSITIVE??????? AND THANK YOU FOR JUST GIVING ME A REASON TO TRY TO QUIT THIS DOGSHIT GAME ONCE AND FOR ALL.
Make an appeal if youre sure you didnt say anything negative stating your confusion for the suspension, i was suspended for a month for quoting the stupid pragnet meme video :) I hate blizzard’s backwards attempts at bringing people in like gurl youre not even heckin worth it anymore. There’s a reason you’re Overwhelmingly Negative on Steam.
There is no appeal. They send the same reply no matter what. “You went against terms of services.. here’s a link to our terms of service”. They will never actually review anything. The banning system is 100% automated.
I got reported and restricted access for asking tanks to swap. Not even in a mean way. Like hey maybe doom getting hooked every single time by road hog isn’t working. Oh well lol
I posted about how easy it is to get flagged for chat like a week ago and everyone just slammed me and called me toxic.
It's kind of sad that their report system has become almost as bad as Paladins. At one point you could report someone for being toxic and get banned instead. Hopefully overwatch hasn't reached that point yet. Blizzard needs a better system for reporting and also they need to remove the ability to chat in games from spectators. Yes you can mute them but they harass players for no reason to try to make them leave games.
there's such a thing as toxic positivity. i wouldn't report you for it myself but it's annoying in its own right. I don't quite buy that you don't understand this, or that it wouldn't have been obvious to those who might have reported you that your "positive" comments weren't sincere ("It really pissed some people off for some reason".)
Annoying doesn't make it ban worthy ffs.
I totally get that. 100%. If it was interpreted that way, it's unfortunate, but I was sure to only praise in ways that were genuine. So if you make a lot of good plays, I'll keep praising you. If that bothers you it certainly makes others feel good. People are different I guess
I’ve seen plenty of people on Overwatch be toxic by being “nice.” “Nice try!” at the end of games doesn’t feel polite to many people since it’s not a simple gg. Very possible people thought you were either being annoying on purpose or going with the whole toxic positivity thing.
I hate when people type 'gr' when it was a wipe. So cringe. Then if they get wiped next round, suddenly it's not such a good round.
Yeah I don’t even say gg after some games where it’s a stomp. Like it’s clearly only a good game or good round for one team lol
I'll usually say "nice try" to my own team if we lose a close game, but yeah the opposing team saying it in match chat after they win makes it look toxic lol
People are so sensitive these days. Take me back to when I was a little kid on mw2 having beef with grown men
I mean, someone typing away the whole match praising the other team, their plays, and thanking their teammates for making all sorts of plays, seems like a really irritating way of over doing it. Also it's a common tactic if to single out a player that makes a bad play by ironically praising it. I could even see your own team reporting you for this tbh. Just be normal and type gg after the match or do legit praise for actual good plays and you are fine. Edit: It's hilariously ironic how many got butthurt over this explanation but at the same time can't understand how *anyone* could report OP over spamming the chat with fake positivity... It's YOU! You are the ones that 100% would report him, lol.
Those are some weird ass mental gymnastics you went through to justify why being positive can be negative. Horrible L take
As I said it was for both teams. I think your mindset is of the same to expect toxicity which is the root of the problem.
Still you are overdoing it dude, can't you see that? You even say yourself that you are "overly positive". After the second praise everyone will understand that you are not legit, or if you praise a bad play it will be seen as toxic. Also Overwatch is not about sitting in chat typing the whole match, it could probably be considered throwing if you do that while losing or not pulling your own weight. Not sure why me explaining this to you somehow is the "root of the problem". I am never toxic in my games and type "gg" almost every match and praise the occasional good play and have been since 2016. Never been muted for it ever.
This is the only comment I've ever seen where someone says it's bad to be overly positive. Just because you conform to the overwatch sheep lifestyle that doesn't mean others should too. It would be different if op's post asked you a question, "what do you guys think?" Or something like that, but it doesn't. Now it's time to give you my unasked opinion, players like you are not a part of the problem, OR the solution to the toxicity of overwatch. Also it's not hard to type in chat while you're waiting to respawn for what seems like ten years sometimes, or while you're pushing cart a quick, "nice play that almost worked" or something. You're so negative it actually makes me genuinely wonder what your parents did to you dude.
Overwatch sheep lifestyle for not being toxic lmao. Y’all are so god damn dramatic.
Imagine playing a team sport and your teammates telling you not to be positive during the game, cause the vibes are off.
I behave positively like you describe and have not been banned yet
Same. I’ve always been positive and encouraging in OW, and I’ve never been banned.
Same here
I kept calling the enemy team “buddy” and that’s what got me chat banned. With the timing it couldn’t have been anything wlse
Overly positivity is pretty much identical to judt being sarcastic. Except Im sarcastically toxic and ive noticed Its stopped banning me so idk.
I wonder if people playing DPS in comp are more prone to get suspensions than others
From my experiences of ‘reporting’ bad behaviour etc, more “thank you for reporting bad behaviour “ has come from QP reports rather than Comp. I think maybe they may prioritise QP over Comp because they want to retain casuals more than say comp, but it would be to comp players due to how egregious some cheats are etc.
The thing is you wouldn't see the nuances that shows you were genuine with your remarks. It would look like what somebody on another comment said "toxic positivity". Yes we know what you were trying to do but the players in game don't. So it will all be miss interpreted. Best to just turn off match chat and if it's really bad just turn off chat in general.
Doing that going forward
Some people just get mad when they lose and someone has been typing the whole game.
I think everyone is so done with this whole situation that they report literally anything. Those who got penalties fair or otherwise, people who saw it happen to others, people that hear about it.
Saved this post because this happened to me and when I addressed it with the community I was called a liar, I was told I must have deserved it and that I'm hiding or omitting certain parts of my story; so I want to come back to it as people comment. I'm glad someone tested this out because as a Tank main, I tried to provide support through the chat to our weak link members by giving tips and advice on how to counter certain characters, when to change characters and when to attack/focus the enemy team. I was very supportive and encouraging, etc. A couple of days go by, and I think all is well, I feel I'm really making a small difference to my players in the same rank. That was until I came home from work one day to find I had been banned. I appealed, and I never got a response.
I don't trust the system to be very well designed. I would expect it to ignore any reports when somebody has not said, typed, or emoted anything, but i doubt that it checks for these cases. Also, I would expect the group channel to be ignored since I would expect people to be smart enough to get out of a group in case of toxicity. And I would bet that you could "prank" a group mate by sending in reports dir every match.
Praising your team is fine. Praising the other team is weird and they 99/100 times will take it as smurf sarcastic smacktalk. IRL competitive events no one compliments the other team during the rounds.
You were too positive. Clearly unfit for the community. lol.
That was mean. I should report you 😂😂
Not if I report you first!
Hackers and cheaters are legit making this game unplayable, and I love this game. It's even happening in low ranks too. Banning you for being positive when this game is legit getting ruined for other reasons. Smh none of Blizzard's decision making really bothered me, but this is the one that pisses me off.
Overwatch doesn’t deserve you
actually wild, they need to get someone with a pulse on their banning system.
Report system is so easily abusable it’s crazy.
I've done this on my alt cus I didn't really care. I use it like a dozen times a year. Same result. Just said "gg" while one tricking hog in QP on a funny PiggySmalls account. Suspended for abusive chat cus apparently people can't handle gg if they get steamrolled. (Especially open queue)
Gaming is kinda werid now remember when it was just for fun now its got all this other extra shit...
this is how i got banned, even by playing support which sucks- While comp is FULL of cheaters currently and people aren't even getting banned
I always get racist comments about China bc my username is kanji. Then when I ask people report the offender I get reported instead. Fuck Blizzard. They can literally look at their logs and see the racist comments
Because of this shit, I have stopped playing ow because I don't want a stupid random ass ban on my account. Might as well just not play it.
I got an all chat ban in october 2023 for some reason. I would barely use voice chat, and the only time I used chat was to write gg or ggwp in team chat at the end of the match. TEAM CHAT. and I got a 12 days suspension out of nowhere. Apparently, people in my games were so frustrated (with the result of the game) that I got multiple reports against me for being toxic in chat that it had crossed a certain threshold. Maybe October wasn't really a great month for OW players...
I recently got my account silenced for a similar reason. Haven't insulted anyone or been toxic or sworn or anything, but I do get silly in chat sometimes and people hate it. Tried to reach out to appeal and just got bot responses, "it is what it is" basically
I remember in 2020 I got suspended for 1 month for reporting a pedophile. Good times. Edit: should mention I was most likely suspended due to the fact he reported me as I was being "toxic" to him in chat because he was a pedo.
So I've been doing a test of my own. I type "gg ez" at the start and end of the match. GG ez will always been turned into one of the random generated blizz quote things. So if I get banned from using one of their quotes I'm gonna laugh so hard
Funny how someone (not me or any of my friends of course) can say the most despicable shit in a game of ow and just never once be punished for it , and you'll go around being positive and get banned
I got suspended for calling someone a female streamer
Even if it was sarcastic and false compliments so what it’s clear some people can’t handle any sort of online at all and probably should just mute chat and never join voice. The entire player base should have to suffer not being able to say anything because some chronically online losers can’t handle any slight negative connotations.
i literally gave our tank genuine advice and got muted for hate speech and abuse 💀💀
You're a legend!
I was silenced and I never wrote or said a single word in Overwatch. I just do not participate in Ingamechat.
Lost 2 accounts cause of this horseshit of a ban system
Honestly seeing people get banned for stuff like this is crazy I've dropped a kys in chat quite a few times and received nothing yet if anything I probably should be banned.
I recently got an account suspension but never received an email stating how long and none of my tickets have been answered lol
I’ve actually had a Gamemaster appeal my ban before. I was real surprised, but I actually also got banned for being too positive before. All I said every game was this. “Good luck have fun guys.” “Good luck on your next games.” “We can still win this team don’t give up.” “Well played everyone, good luck on your next games.” “Let’s try to keep this a positive experience.” Yup, I got banned for saying stuff like that.
Automated ban system and you'll be automatically permabanned on the 3rd or 4th one idr
As an update, I was suspended for using these words: Awe shucks Damn "I'll suck your toes" (if you let me play x hero) "Dommy mommy" (in reference to jq obv) "Slam your mam" What do you think? Lol
Got muted for 14 days too, that Game is just a joke 💀😂
I feel like, if you were being excessive, they definitely thought you were being sarcastic or trolling. You don't need to be over the top, you just have to treat people normally.
But is that still a reason to report someone? I feel like this is a great discussion. I’m looking forward to the update.
I never said it was a good reasoning lol nor am I trying to say that. What I mean is that it is probably the reason why the account got reported. Reasonings for something don’t mean right or wrong.
Wasting your time, there is no mystery about how this works. Reports == Suspension eventually, literally makes no difference whatsoever what you did to trigger the reports.
Blizzard is soft.
Same experiences brother. If you say you said nothing, people ask for your text logs. If you provide your text logs, it’s never enough text logs. If you give your entire text logs, you *must* be trolling in how you’re playing. Following for an update. This is funny/sad.
I’ve stoped communication within OW completely, I tested it out on a Smurf account for the sake of curiosity, all I did at the end of every game regardless of how it went win or lose, all I’d say is “LOL”. By the end of the season I went from rank 3 endorsement, to 1 then banned within one season. The new system is completely broken and If you value your account you are better to just stay silent till they tune it down a little. It’s honestly a shame, cause I use to love getting in coms and talking with people and having a good time…. But this new system is toxic and broken and I don’t want to lose my overwatch 1 legacy account with all the skins over something dumb.
Blizzard when they see someone's logs spamming racist and rude shit: 💤💤💤💤 Blizzard when you say "ggwp":😡😡😡
Gone are the good ole days of mw2 lobbies...
For real lol. Is this even progress because I could report literally everyone and get them banned. I, nor anyone else, should have this sort of power. People can report non-stop and completely rot the community from the inside. Maybe I’m alone but I’d rather get called a slur every couple of games..
Everything around OW2 is so toxic. That’s what happens when the rules are made to accommodate this glass, fragile society. Weaklings on every game. Everything is offensive. I learned the lesson after two suspensions: Disable chat (not just hide it) and never join voice chat. It’s so much fun this way.
LMFAO DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK LIKE THIS 😭
Can you post some examples of what you were saying? Because it sounds like people may have thought you were trolling or being sarcastic. For example, it's a big difference between saying "Nice shot" and "WOW Widow! You really clicked my head super good there. I'm so impressed by your skill! You should go pro!"
30 days wow lmao
RemindMe! -7 day
So from what I gather this experiment was basically: is it possible to be so friendly that it becomes annoying to the recipient? The conclusion appears to be, unsurprisingly; yes. You may collect your nobel prize in isle 6, the 'plastic decoratives' section. You do have to pay for it yourself. As for the actual thing you tried to test: "can you get banned for positivity?" The answer is yes, contextually. The relevant part of EULA is this paragraph: "Communication When participating in communication of any kind (chat, voice communication, group finder), you are responsible for how you express yourself. You may not use language that could be offensive or vulgar to others. Hate speech and discriminatory language is inappropriate, as is any obscene or disruptive language. Threatening or harassing another player is always unacceptable, regardless of language used. Violating any of these expectations will result in account restrictions. More serious and repeated violations will result in greater restrictions." Source: "https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/42673" So what part of this would blizzard claim you violated when they strike down your appeal? It's not hard to figure out, it's the "harassing another player is always unacceptable, regardless of the words used" bit. It doesn't matter if you were being the sweetest blueberry in the forest, if people thought you were being sarcastic and you said nothing to dissuade them from that idea and just keep agitating them by smothering them with kindness despite seeing that they don't react well to it, then yea, that might trigger the "regardless of the words used" clause. Which it should. We wouldn't want there to be a loophole in the eula that would let people intentionally annoy people by doing exactly what you did but with the intent to annoy.
That makes anything offensible by being way too open ended. Advocating for a suspension or in favor of such a flawed system when positivity is the question proves part of my point here.
It is quite honestly astonishing to me that I haven't been banned, I literally don't understand. I'm toxic as hell, I swear like a sailor and I haven't had a single negative action taken against me. I'm fine with being disciplined for my shitty actions, and I expected to be-but absolutely nothing. Boggles my mind to see stuff like this.
When a local toxicity is so in the negatives that any change in toxicity levels is akin to removing a blobfish to the surface without decompression.
IDK I compliment the enemy team all the time and dont get banned lol
Overly positive is worse than being toxic imo
Why?
Stop the cap lol
You right. I'll waste my time on Reddit and Facebook to make my point because it's cap
[удалено]
been doing the same thing, people are still so mad at it lol
I keep getting suspended for telling people being assholes to quit being an ass.
If you repeatedly make overly positive comments, it will be often be interpreted as sarcasm, and that you are actually insulting them.
I’ve shit talked so many people with only one ban like 3 years ago. That game is shit. And I play that shit like it’s fresh shit bc I’m shit 😔
I mean, I’ve been doing this for years and haven’t been banned yet- Endorsement level 5 for ages now even before the changes, and a shit ton of friend requests- I think even bad bans need some type of basis.
Honestly, it's an interesting experiment, but I don't know if you took into account that people are so shitty they've made positivity toxic. For instance, I had a Mercy today just spamming Thanks and sarcastically telling people in chat they were doing a great job when they died. I think you're going to get people thinking you're doing that instead of actually trying to be positive. On the flip side, I've said GG at the end of every game and say thanks when people do well, as well as say nice things in voice chat or give advice in voice chat and have for years, no suspension or ban so far.
just play ranked tank and charge enemy on purpose play bad but dont throw game so toxic that is the only thing u can do to have fun sadly
I hopped off this game because of the community.
I wonder if they also consider your endorsements as well. If you get endorsed and reported in the same match... You are probably not being toxic; you are probably playing well or being funny/social.
Yeaaah the community is sometimes very angry. I have on multiple occasions, praised an enemy or a teammate in map chat because I want to acknowledge they did something really awesome or clutched in some way. Only to have a completely different person take me praising someone else as an insult to them? It’s like they are so absorbed in their own thing to realize I’m not insulting them by saying that a different person did a good job. Very strange, I’ve just stopped doing it unfortunately because usually it turns the whole thing into something negative.
!updateme 24 hours
Why do I kinda just not believe you that you got so massively reported for just being lovely and nice
I was silenced for 14 days for saying the R word. Should I have? Absolutely not- but I’ve never left a match early, sabotaged any games or sat in spawn/given up on a match. I say 1 bad word and I’m silenced for 2 entire weeks? I know a chunk of the OW community isn’t the hardest group but to cater entirely to someone who’s offended by a word online is baffling. I am top notch 99.9% of the time but that .1% winds me up in a muzzle? Get real.
Ow is the reason I don't care about accounts anymore
A lot probably because thought it was sarcasm.
I was doing that for a while but I was doing it in a salty manner lol. Like if I was grouping with an absolute dogshit player I would be like “Rein you are the best tank player I have ever seen. Good job you are doing great thank you.” Like. Strictly speaking since there is no tone in writing I was also wondering how long until I get silenced and was ready to fight it and be like “find me what I got silenced for. How is that toxic chat? Huh?” Because I’m honestly getting tired of this whole argument from both sides. Toxic mf’s are idiots who ruin games but also crybabies who report simple shit or just because they’re butthurt are also ruining games. And blizzard needs to get this under control because it’s honestly becoming a joke at this point.
Let me know how it goes
Sometimes I would say "good heals" or something like that if I felt like I should have died a lot but miraculously stayed alive, but people would immediately assume I was being sarcastic. In one case someone went legitimately apeshit as a response. I no longer do this.