Overwatch PTR update adds option to report people for "poor teamwork"

[IceForce]

Relevant video:


This hasn't gotten much airtime (because Orisa is dominating Overwatch news at the moment), but another update has dropped on the PTR, this time changing the way the reporting system works.

Gone is the free-text field, replaced with long descriptions of what each reporting option does. (For example, placing Symmetra's teleporter at the edge of a cliff gets a special mention under "Griefing")

But the change causing the most kerfuffle is that a new report reason has been added to the existing options; an option to report people for "poor teamwork".
The description for this says something about players not playing the objectives and/or being too negative or abusive towards their teammates.

Now, the obvious issue here is that many of these descriptions are reeeeally subjective and open to interpretation (think Escapist's infamous "Don't be a jerk" rule as a nice analogue). The other problem is that these reports are apparently handled by an automated system, which applies an auto-ban after a certain threshold of reports has been reached.

Jeff Kaplan has been saying for a while that he's not a fan of how toxic his game's community can be, and has been wanting to clamp down on that for a while. So this change would seem to be their first step towards going about doing that.

Thoughts on this? Good idea / bad idea? Is this system going to be way too open to abuse, or will it have the desired effect?

 

[Zhukov]

(For example, placing Symmetra's teleporter at the edge of a cliff gets a special mention under "Griefing")

Noooooooo!

The other problem is that these reports are apparently handled by an automated system, which applies an auto-ban after a certain threshold of reports has been reached.

Bleh.

I understand that they can't exactly have live humans going through game replays to follow up on every report. But an automated system is just a shitty idea.

Set the threshold too low and you get people being auto-banned because their team didn't like them picking a iffy character and decided to get petty with the report system. Set it too high and people have to be acting out for a week sraight before anything gets done.

I expect it will be more the latter than the former. I doubt it will cause major problems, but I also doubt it will be afix for anything.

 

[IceForce]

(For example, placing Symmetra's teleporter at the edge of a cliff gets a special mention under "Griefing")

Noooooooo!

I'm surprised they called out that example specifically. I'm more surprised that they don't do something programmatically to stop people from doing that type of griefing altogether, if it's such a problem. Like enforcing a minimum radius around the teleporter so it can't be placed next to a cliff that kills the player.

 

[Paragon Fury]

(For example, placing Symmetra's teleporter at the edge of a cliff gets a special mention under "Griefing")

Noooooooo!

The other problem is that these reports are apparently handled by an automated system, which applies an auto-ban after a certain threshold of reports has been reached.

Bleh.

I understand that they can't exactly have live humans going through game replays to follow up on every report. But an automated system is just a shitty idea.

Set the threshold too low and you get people being auto-banned because their team didn't like them picking a iffy character and decided to get petty with the report system. Set it too high and people have to be acting out for a week sraight before anything gets done.

I expect it will be more the latter than the former. I doubt it will cause major problems, but I also doubt it will be afix for anything.

Just do what DotA 2 does; you only a pool of 3 Reports you can use, and you only get more by having your Reports "verified" (IE: That person winds up having action taken against them) or by having a certain amount of time in-between reports AS well as you not having actions taken against your account.

It's much less tempting to use the Report function to troll or grief someone for petty shit when doing so makes it unavailable to report real issues.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Eh? They're removing the text field too?

That's a dumb idea. I would think it would be a good idea to call out exactly what the problem is in the text field to make it easier for blizz to identify the part of the game that was the problem.

Just do what DotA 2 does; you only a pool of 3 Reports you can use, and you only get more by having your Reports "verified" (IE: That person winds up having action taken against them) or by having a certain amount of time in-between reports AS well as you not having actions taken against your account.

It's much less tempting to use the Report function to troll or grief someone for petty shit when doing so makes it unavailable to report real issues.

I like this concept.

 

[cleric of the order]

Rip genji mains

R.I.P. everyone.
You know you are going to get one of those spastics show up who if everyone isn't following what they say to the letter they aren't operating as team.
this shit is going to be abused.

 

[lionsprey]

good step but its probably going to be abused to all hell.

 

[hermes]

That is going to be abused as all hell.

I have often enough got called out for picking an offensive hero instead of a tank when trapped on a choke point on attack, or harassing the objective from a distance instead of going head first into an enclosed space full of enemies; I can only imagine how bad if would be if those asinine complain reasons where two clicks away.

 

[squid5580]

One step closer to Blizzard's dream. Ban everyone so they aren't obligated to work on it anymore

 

[sanquin]

If you require, say, 20 reports over the timespan of 5 games before getting banned then sure. As that means you need to get reported by 4 players each game on average before getting banned. If that many people think you're being disruptive or abusive then I think it would be justified.

But there's also a lot of opportunity for systems like these to be abused... I wonder why they don't go for a system like CS:GO. Where people from the community watch over the footage, and based on how many verification someone gets they can then get banned or not. They could even add a small reward. Something like 2~5 credits for every player you reviewed that indeed does get banned.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Trusting the player base to police themselves is like trusting a bunch of starving wolves to guard a juicy steak.

Rip genji mains

...You know what, I changed my mind. I for one welcome our new automated overlords. False report away!

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

They could even add a small reward. Something like 2~5 credits for every player you reviewed that indeed does get banned.

That would encourage you to falsely try to get people banned for a reward.

 

[sanquin]

That would encourage you to falsely try to get people banned for a reward.

Except other random people would also be reviewing the same players. And Blizzard would still need to have a team to go through the players that get through the player judgements. Like...5~10 random people reviewed someone's footage and determined they were cheating or being abusive -> video gets sent to blizz employees which make the final decision on whether action should be taken. Basically, players will help sift through false reports, as there are too many of them to have only blizz employees go through them.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

That would encourage you to falsely try to get people banned for a reward.

Except other random people would also be reviewing the same players. And Blizzard would still need to have a team to go through the players that get through the player judgements. Like...5~10 random people reviewed someone's footage and determined they were cheating or being abusive -> video gets sent to blizz employees which make the final decision on whether action should be taken. Basically, players will help sift through false reports, as there are too many of them to have only blizz employees go through them.

If you have a reward for getting players banned, then all of the people "reviewing" flagged players will automatically flag them as cheaters without even looking so that they can flag as many people possible as fast as possible to claim a bigger reward. It won't matter if it's 1 person reviewing, 5 people, or 10 people, the moment you have a reward for doing a bad job at reviewing people the system will be abused. Thus you'll have way too many flagged accounts for any blizzard person to actually review (tens of thousands of hours of footage), which will mean that the blizzard employee isn't going to do his job either, and will either start handing out punishments indiscriminately, or hand out no punishments at all.

Rewarding people for getting other people banned is a shit solution that will be abused because it's very easy for people to rationalize being assholes to people they don't know, have never seen, and will never meet.

Don't assume that people are going to ever do the morally right thing if it doesn't also suit their best interests, you'll be sorely disappointed by the world.

 

[sanquin]

If you have a reward for getting players banned, then all of the people "reviewing" flagged players will automatically flag them as cheaters without even looking so that they can flag as many people possible as fast as possible to claim a bigger reward. It won't matter if it's 1 person reviewing, 5 people, or 10 people, the moment you have a reward for doing a bad job at reviewing people the system will be abused. Thus you'll have way too many flagged accounts for any blizzard person to actually review (tens of thousands of hours of footage), which will mean that the blizzard employee isn't going to do his job either, and will either start handing out punishments indiscriminately, or hand out no punishments at all.

Rewarding people for getting other people banned is a shit solution that will be abused because it's very easy for people to rationalize being assholes to people they don't know, have never seen, and will never meet.

Don't assume that people are going to ever do the morally right thing if it doesn't also suit their best interests, you'll be sorely disappointed by the world.

I guess you have a point. The rewards are a stupid idea. For CSGO it does work. People in the community review videos of accused hackers/abusers there. Though I'm not entirely sure about all the mechanics behind it.