Blizzard's Defense Matrix system needs to be much more aggressive.
I play a lot of Overwatch. About 20 games a day, give or take, 7 days a week. I love this game.
I'm not using hyperbole or exaggeration when I say that at least 70% of my games have nasty people in them. People insulting teammates, sexist/racist/ableist or otherwise bigoted comments, bullying, telling people to harm themselves...
And then outside of the horrific communication, at least one in four games has someone throwing. I don't mean playing poorly. Everyone has bad games and I try to stick up for someone when they get dog piled just for not playing perfectly. I mean standing in the corner emoting, or charging in 1v5 over and over. Often when someone is bullying and I stand up to them, they immediately throw.
For context, I play in plat, occasionally gold. The range where more than 50% of the playerbase lies, so I'm not in some fringe ELO like Bronze or GM.
This is probably the wrong place to post it due to the amount of "I got wrongly banned" posts (doubtful lol), but since they read Reddit, I'll share these thoughts here. This game is rated T. I know media ratings are kinda bullshit, but if I had a kid I would never, EVER let them play this game.
I only played four games today. The first was "okay", in that two players were insulting each other back and forth all game because one of them was mad the enemy team banned their hero. (re-reading this before posting... how fucking SAD is it that I have to consider that to be an "okay" game??) The second one had someone who straight up said they didn't have all their abilities keybound because "I don't need them". The third had three people being bigoted in regards to a person's identity. The fourth game had someone calling me a r-word.
This isn't an insurmountable problem. It's not "gaming culture". That nasty comment of "you never would've survived COD lobbies" is horrific. Nobody should have to "survive" basic human interaction! What kind of monstrous statement is that?! I'm 35, I've been gaming all my life, so yes I did "survive" it. I participated even, which I regret.
Overwatch has a wide-reaching reputation for being like this. Are you okay with that, Blizzard? That the first thing people think of when they hear the name "Overwatch", is a community of hate, bullying, and degeneracy?