With the launch of Overwatch 2, now we have welcomed over 40 million gamers, each returning and new, to the world of Overwatch! Since changing into free-to-play, we have continued to fight disruptive behaviors, together with gameplay sabotage, abusive chat, and dishonest. As defined within the introduction to our Defense Matrix initiative, we have already made strides to push towards a fairer gaming expertise for all our gamers. Today, now we have a number of updates we would prefer to share about how we’re persevering with to make sure Overwatch 2 is a enjoyable and secure recreation for everybody to take pleasure in.
Disruptive Voice Chat Detection
In our earlier weblog we introduced that we’d start to determine and take motion towards those that are disruptive in voice chat via using our new voice-to-text transcription and AI studying algorithms. We’ve begun to rollout this new expertise beginning in Season 2 for choose areas and it’s confirmed to be exceptionally correct and efficient in figuring out abusive chat and language. We’ve already begun working to cease disruptive gamers with relevant chat silencing and account suspensions as wanted.
Remember to report anybody you discover to be abusive, whether or not in voice chat or textual content chat, instantly as quickly as you encounter it in your video games. Reporting straight away helps us take motion on these accounts sooner.
Custom Game Moderation
Many of the customized video games our gamers have provide you with proceed to be enjoyable and inventive methods to take pleasure in Overwatch 2. While we work to carry again our superior Workshop instruments for customized recreation creators to make use of, we additionally wish to ensure that we’re offering methods to verify our customized video games stay secure and pleasant for all of our gamers.
We’ll quickly be including in new moderation expertise that works behind the scenes to mechanically take away customized video games containing inappropriate titles or content material, together with issuing restrictions or account actions to those that create and publish such customized video games.
Remember, whenever you see any inappropriate customized recreation itemizing, be sure you open the customized recreation’s info tab and report them.
Introducing Streamer Protection
Part of sustaining a powerful Overwatch 2 neighborhood is supporting our devoted gamers who create content material and reside stream throughout numerous video platforms. A rising drawback in reside streaming communities is when disruptive gamers try and intrude with these content material creators by making an attempt to queue into the identical match they wish to play. “Stream sniping” just isn’t a straightforward drawback to resolve, however beginning in season 3, we’re introducing new streaming safety options that must be an enormous step towards enabling content material creators to share Overwatch 2 with their followers safely and with out harassment from disruptive gamers.
Players will now be capable of conceal their present BattleTag or conceal the tags of the opposite gamers in the identical recreation they play in on their very own recreation shopper. This will stop those that could also be watching that participant’s reside stream from figuring out in the event that they’re in the identical foyer. Players may also now conceal the present queue time and even delay it for a random time earlier than the sport truly begins to discover a match for that participant. Replay Codes may also now be hidden from showing within the recreation shopper. These options will likely be obtainable beginning in Season 3 for all gamers and might be discovered within the Social choices in your settings.
Grouping Up and Playing Fair
We acknowledge that dishonest continues to be a significant concern for a lot of of our high-ranked gamers. So far, now we have actioned over 50,000 accounts that we discovered to be dishonest because the launch of Overwatch 2. Along with taking motion towards cheaters, we wish to discourage any incentive to benefit from dishonest, together with grouping up with anybody who makes use of cheats and hacks. Starting in season 3, we’ll be figuring out gamers who willingly group up commonly with these flagged for dishonest, and they’re going to additionally face account motion, even when they aren’t utilizing cheats themselves.
Players who knowingly group up with cheaters need to take the identical benefit as those that use cheats themselves, together with boosting their accounts to ability ranges they might not usually belong in with their very own ability. Doing so creates unfair and imbalanced matches for a lot of in our neighborhood and doesn’t reside as much as our core worth of Play Nice, Play Fair. While those that instantly cheat are sometimes completely banned instantly, we will likely be issuing extreme suspensions for prolonged quantities of time, and in excessive instances, outright bans, to these grouping up with recognized cheaters.
Remember to Report
We wish to conclude with a reminder to all of our neighborhood that your experiences matter. Remember that we usually tend to take motion on disruptive gamers whenever you see it in your video games and take the time to them. This helps us make Overwatch 2 a enjoyable and pleasant gaming expertise for everybody. We additionally wish to acknowledge that reporting on console platforms is a sophisticated expertise, and have plans to work on enhancing the person interface for console gamers to be extra intuitive.
Making certain we will ship a secure, enjoyable, and honest recreation for all of our gamers is a continuing space of focus for our staff, and we sit up for sharing extra updates sooner or later. In the meantime, we encourage everybody to overview the Blizzard In-Game Code of Conduct, and take any steps to make sure that your gameplay is enjoyable and honest for others. Thank you, heroes. Until subsequent time.
